Eduardo Arranz-Bravo: BIOMORPHISM
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2019
New York
OPEN HOUSE:
Eduardo Arranz-Bravo: Biomorphism
Saturday, February 16, 2019, 1-5pm
431 West Broadway
New York, NY 10012
RSVP: 212.226.1616/800.926.9537 - or- EMAIL
Biomorphism comes from the Greek words bio, meaning life, and morphe, meaning form. It describes the bridging of gaps between surrealism and abstract art as well as its association with shapes and forms in arts, architecture and design. Prime examples include works by Jean Arp, Joan Miró and Antoni Gaudí.
Albert Mercadé
“The paintings of great artists seem to take spontaneous, magical, happy flight during the more advanced stages of the creative process. Let us take, by way of example, the case of Joan Miró. The traditional forms in his work became atomized, liberated, during the last period of his career. It is as if they were all shaken and mixed up, though the overall quality of the work does not suffer for this. On the contrary, by deconstructing his triumphant forms from the past and giving himself over to the playful side of art, in his last works Miró both nourishes and humanizes his universal destiny.
This seems to me the time and space occupied by Eduardo Arranz-Bravo’s current work. I was lucky enough to discover the artist and his work in 2004, at his last major show in Catalonia, at the Tecla Sala Cultural Centre in L’Hospitalet. At that time, I identified two core principles in his contemporary oeuvre. First, a clear orientation towards communication in his painterly work: the feverish, centrifugal forms of the 1970s and 1980s now occupied the centre of the picture, generating forceful formal symbols— hands, heads, horses, vital organs. Secondly, a new language emerged— electric, light-filled, enriched by artificial conduits and incandescent colors. Most importantly, the work revolved insistently around man –tragic man, man in love, man gone mad.”
James Johnson Sweeny, an early curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, wrote the following about Joan Miró in 1959, and his words provide poignant context for Arranz-Bravo’s work today: “[his] art is perhaps best understood if one takes into account that this is an art profoundly rooted in a magical place, perpetually fertilized and sustained by the particular atmosphere which pervades it, an art from his environment fired into esthetic form by the intensity of his regard for it and realized by the competence of his craft.”1
1. James Johnson Sweeny, Atmósfera Miró / The Miró Atmosphere,1959
THE COLLECTION
GALLERY INSTALLATION
RECENT ARTIST NEWS & EXHIBITIONS
Franklin Bowles Galleries congratulates Eduardo Arranz-Bravo on his many achievements since hosting his first US Retrospective in New York City in the fall of 2017.
Highlights Include:
Not Pictured:
November 2018: A seminal early work included in the group exhibition: LIBERXINA, Pop and New Artistic Behaviour, 1966-1971 at the Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) which runs through April 22, 2019
Fall 2018: Arranz-Bravo is awarded his first major US public art project a commission to create a large scale mural for the Port of Miami Terminal B project,Miami, Florida. (October 2019)
2018: For an event organized by 48H Open House Barcelona, the studio of Arranz-Bravo hosts the Barcelona School of Art and Design and groups of international architects to view its award winning site and design
September 2018: Arranz-Bravo is selected by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) to create the hull artwork for the fourth and final ship of its Breakaway-Plus class, the 325.9-meter (1,069-foot) Norwegian Encore, debuting in Miami in November 2019