Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art L.L.C is pleased to present New Works by José María Sicilia; a solo exhibition of eleven sensuous beeswax paintings. The exhibition will run from March 12 through April 11, 2008.
José María Sicilia (Madrid, 1954) is an internationally recognized artist who has focused much of his career on investigating the intangible space that exists between art and life, Eros and Thanatos. With his new body of work, "Eclipses", Sicilia mines the fragility and evanescent quality of all life and employs the butterfly with its metamorphic states as his muse. Throughout this work, Sicilia illuminates the exquisite delicacy of the butterfly, while simultaneously acknowledging the implications of its eventual demise. The "Eclipses" paintings exhibit the intricate patterning of butterfly wings, which have been enlarged and made abstract by ostensibly placing them under a microscopic lens. The images of the wings are made static and encapsulated for all eternity in beeswax, functioning as a kind of embalming fluid, and thereby, preserving the beauty of youth while at the same time implying the alternative. In José María Sicilia's work, decay and mortality are natural, tactile and beautiful phenomena. The "Eclipses" paintings suggest time advancing and time passed, formlessness and dissolution.
There exists an intentional luminous quality to the "Eclipses" paintings. Beeswax, as a material, functions to both obfuscate the butterfly wings as well as to illuminate them. From a distance they become clear and organized; upon closer inspection the infinite becomes apparent in the details. Highly abstract, the beeswax and paint mixture create viscous swirling patterns of layers of color and depth.
José María Sicilia's works are represented in important public and private collections throughout Europe, the United States and Asia including the Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid; Banco de España collection, Madrid; Caixa Collection, Barcelona; Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, Valencia (IVAM); The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio among others.
Among the many awards he has received, José María Sicilia was given the Spanish National Prize of the Arts in 1989. José María Sicilia lives and works between Paris and Soller (Palma de Mallorca, Spain). This exhibition will mark the artist's first return to New York in ten years.
For further information please contact the gallery. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10am-5:30pm, and Saturday by appointment.
