Prudencio Irazabal. Clarity and Incertitude

Prudencio Irazabal. Clarity and Incertitude

The exhibition Clarity and Incertitude presents the latest works by spanish artist Prudencio Irazabal in his fourth exhibition at Helga de Alvear gallery in Madrid. While in his previous series entitled Chromatography (1993-1998) the artist unwove colour into its individual components, his focus is now on the spectrum of light. Working with pigments he aims to emulate the visual results obtained when working with additive light-colours.

In this body of work, the artist has further pursued his experimentation with the basic components of painting: colour, structure and materials. These elements are ever-present in his production and in this particular series they are used to experiment and explore light. A light materialised through colour.

Irazabal uses as a reference James Joyce’s assertion “Claritas is Quidditas”, taken from “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. Clarity is the key, the essence, and the intelligible nature of things. In this way, clarity and light, model the composition on the canvas. The result is a dynamic coloured clarity, which the artist achieves not only by grading light, but rather through the precise formulation of colour. Thus, the spectrum of light is used as a chromatic category, as a transformative tool, which acts upon materials and form.

The technique employed by Prudencio Irazabal requires a methodical preparation of colours. These are applied to the canvas in a succession of thin acrylic resin layers, which act as the perfect vehicle to capture the expression of light. The clarity of these pieces resides in their particular conjectural nature, unfinished and forever open to accept another layer. Being aware that clarity cannot break through the fog of incertitude, this exhibition articulates the overlapping of these two concepts – clarity and uncertainty- while inviting the viewer to understand them as one.