Jerónimo Elespe

Jeronimo Elespe

Madrid, Spain, 1975 Lives and works in Madrid

Through a slow cumulative process of addition and subtraction, lasting months or even years each one of Jerónimo Elespe’s paintings reveals itself as a platform to investigate the nature of time and memory.

Taking as starting points autobiographical references the artist examines the ability of painting and drawing as a record of reality and fiction. Often working in very small formats, he explores the physical properties of the works opening a contradictory space between the purely objectual part of the reduced pieces, markedly physical, and their theme, usually referring states close to the immaterial.

Paseos rotos | Óleo sobre aluminio 18 x 13 cm | 2015
Forgotten Gardening

Forgotten Gardening

«Elespe stresses the importance of using the exhibition space as a place in which the viewer must actively work establishing rhythms and potential routes between the works.»

On his enigmatic pieces installations, Elespe stresses the importance of using the exhibition space as a place in which the viewer must actively work establishing rhythms and potential routes between the works, thus making the observation of small pieces a physical act that replicates the artist in his studio. Creating, in short, a sense to the transfer between artist and viewer.

Along with a thorough study of the history of painting, with sources as diverse as the symbolist and decadent French literature of the late nineteenth century or Donald Barthelme and JG Ballard’s narrative, among others, they play a key role in Elespe’s practice, following a dialogue between reality and fiction in which the works fulfill both the function of ambiguous and very personal abstract journals, experimentation tools of various languages and pictorial repositories of memory created fictions.

Cronología | 2021 | 30,4 x 25,4 cm

Cronología | 2021 | 30,4 x 25,4 cm

Dos Cuchillos | 2021 | 18 x 13 cm

Dos Cuchillos | 2021 | 18 x 13 cm

Conocimiento | 2021 | 10 x 10 cm

Conocimiento | 2021 | 10 x 10 cm

Perceptible | 2021 | 6 x 3 cm

Perceptible | 2021 | 6 x 3 cm

Clear Hands Tinta y lápiz sobre papel | 5.6 x 12.1 cm | 2016

Clear Hands | Tinta y lápiz sobre papel | 5.6 x 12.1 cm | 2016

Afternoon pass | Óleo sobre aluminio | 38 x 25 cm | 2014-2015

Afternoon pass | Óleo sobre aluminio | 38 x 25 cm | 2014-2015

Impediments | Óleo sobre aluminio | 10 x 10 cm | 2015

Impediments | Óleo sobre aluminio | 10 x 10 cm | 2015

PASEOS ROTOS | ÓLEO SOBRE ALUMINIO | 18 X 13 CM | 2015

PASEOS ROTOS | 18 X 13 CM | 2015

Others Will See | Óleo sobre aluminio | 38 x 25 cm | 2014-2015

Others Will See | Oil on aluminum | 38 x 25 cm | 2014-2015

Inward | Óleo sobre aluminio | 18 x 13 cm | 2011

Inward | Oil on aluminum | 18 x 13 cm | 2011

Apócrifos | Óleo sobre aluminio | 6 x 4 cm | 2010

Apócrifos | Oil on aluminum | 6 x 4 cm | 2010

Tardío | Óleo sobre aluminio | 10 x 10 cm | 2010

Tardío | Oil on aluminum | 10 x 10 cm | 2010

El ejemplar | Óleo sobre aluminio | 10 x 10 cm | 2010
Helplesness | Óleo sobre aluminio | 15 x 10 cm | 2010

Helplesness | Oil on aluminum | 15 x 10 cm | 2010

Untitled (graden) | Óleo sobre aluminio | 25 x 38 cm | 2005

Paseos rotos | Oil on aluminum | 18 x 13 cm | 2015

Jerónimo Elespe graduated from the New York School of Visual Arts and completed an MFA from Yale University. His work has been presented in the following solo exhibitions: “Jeronimo Elespe”, Van Doren Waxter, New York, United States (2021) ; “Jerónimo Elespe”, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain (2018) ; “Pas encore”, LABOR, Mexico City, Mexico (2015) ; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo - CAC Malaga, Spain (2012) ; “John Connelly Presents”, New York, United States (2010) ; University of Massachusetts Art Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts, United States (2004) and the following collective exhibitions: “#TodosSomosHonolulu”, LABOR, Mexico City, Mexico (2020) ; “The Lure of the Dark: Contemporary Painters Conjure the Night” en MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, United States (2018) ; “Alpha Fight IV”, Pure Joy, Marfa, Texas, United States (2018) ; “Colección Soledad Lorenzo: Punto de encuentro”, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (2017) “La Piel Translúcida”, Colección Iberdola, CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain (2015). His work is part of the following collections: Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (US), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (ES), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga (ES), Banco de España (ES), among others.

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