The exhibition will present numerous recent works mainly taken from three series on which the American artist has been working for some years: LDV, mixed media on paper; Sisters, works made from wax and exhibited on the wall; and The Long Winfred, a long work consisting of various wax elements placed on wooden structures. The title of the show refers to one of the most characteristic components of Arends’ work, wax, which is used both in two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. In fact it is this material that permits the ductility and physicality that, over the years, has become a defining element of his work.
In this, his third solo exhibition in the gallery, Arends is showing works using different techniques but all with precise and organic aesthetic choices linked to abstraction and inquiries into the boundaries between painting and sculpture. In fact all Arends’ works present us with the need to think deeply about the very foundations of art and its role. Despite this analytical vision, one that never loses sight of painting’s autonomy and non-referentiality (and this has been typical of his whole career), Stuart Arends’ works are enlivened by their contamination with personal notations, narratives, and the taste of the person who makes them. So memories and images are evoked without any kind of concession to illustration. The Winfrid series, for example, alludes to the small village in South Dakota where the artist’s mother spent her childhood.
Roberto Pinto has written an essay for the exhibition.
