Mallorca artist Pep Girbent invents his own curator

Mallorca artist Pep Girbent gives his Valencia exhibition a curator who does not exist: Arturo Castro, an avatar he invented himself. Pintar en el siglo XXI opens at the Fundación Bancaja on 2 October and runs until 24 January.

Looking at his work as someone else

Girbent said at Thursday’s presentation that Castro helps him step back from his paintings and look at them as though another artist had made them. He sees the invented curator as part of the playful side of making art.

The exhibition brings together mostly large-scale paintings. Some were made for the show, others are being displayed for the first time, and Girbent has returned to older works to paint on them again.

Film images become paintings

Girbent draws on cinema, the internet, other art and his own photographs. He chooses images whose stories remain open, leaving people who see the paintings to make their own reading of them.

The works show quiet scenes of rooms, buildings, light and people, giving the long-established subject of interiors a present-day look. For Girbent, a painting also offers something a digital image cannot: the physical canvas, layers of paint and time spent making it.

Topics: Culture

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com