George, Peter, Sofia e Tamina at P420

Artists: Adrian Buschmann, George Rouy, Peter Shear, Sofia Silva, Tamina Amadyar

Exhibition title: George, Peter, Sofia e Tamina

Venue: P420, Bologna, Italy

Date: January 31 – March 30, 2019

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and P420, Bologna

Galleria P420 is proud to present the group show Adrian, George, Peter, Sofia e Tamina.

Five artists, five painting processes, different geographical backgrounds, stories, battles with form. Adrian, George, Peter, Sofia e Tamina is a tribute to diversity within a single discipline, against the idea of necessary connection and networking.

Five personalities come together, displayed in the most forthright way possible in an exhibition whose title conveys only the first names of the artists. In one fell swoop the space of P420 hosts countless pictorial battles.

Adrian, George, Peter, Sofia e Tamina is an exhibition reflecting the firm conviction that painting – abstract or figurative – goes well beyond the image and the representation. This is why the selection contains forcefully process-based artists, who deploy human and visual intelligence in intuition and the time of making, also at the risk of doing harm, of sacrificing the refinement of the work in favor of a constructive and emotional violence that goes beyond the result, beyond the object, simply through action.

The work of Polish artist Adrian Buschmann takes us into the secret passages of the most refined, carefully plotted central European seduction; the painting is docile, silent, concealed behind a great range of imperceptible lines and expansive, elegant surfaces, revealing its character as an “open sister” of architecture and design of Austrian-German origin, cultivated by the surgical gaze of Adrian, urban wizard, intermittent commentator on society.

Absence of tonal contrast, languor and depth of pigment, dance, monolithic brushing together of bodies, compositions ruled by smooth flesh, burns on thick flesh: this is the realm of the English artist George Rouy. His work is the standard bearer of the hope that in painting the body can return to being dangerous and rebellious; in the sensuality of his paintings, George is close to religious art.

The American Peter Shear experiments with a hundred different intuitions. In each work of his vast repertoire he focuses on a particular painterly challenge; each test is played out in a preset economy of means and a give, though unconscious, historical-artistic reference. His process is open, witty, highly intellectual without losing its intimacy which is forceful, aware of the edges of the painting, explosive and thick.

Italian painter Sofia Silva is a gambler, she plays in stark territories, on the pictorial razor’s edge. Her paintings and fabrics are cut with the sword of Joan of Arc, against any illusion, any technicism, any commonplaces, even against any opposite of commonplace, towards a crueler, Artaudian painting capable of expressing a violent female sexuality. Sofia presents.

German artist Tamina Amadyar limits her brushstrokes to areas of two colors whose interaction permits questioning of space and visual depth. Tamina’s luminous canvases speak of actions, making it possible to recognize the movements made by the body of the artist during painting process; they remind us that the work, whether abundant or spare, has to breathe and to embrace the time of silence, placing a finger before its lips.

The objective of Adrian, George, Peter, Sofia e Tamina is to be a difficult exhibition, happy to cause a slight headache.

George, Peter, Sofia e Tamina, 2019, exhibition view, P420, Bologna, photo: C.Favero

Adrian Buschmann, people always make war, when they say they love peace, 2018, oil on canvas, cm. 242x202x7 (Courtesy the artist, Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

Adrian Buschmann, Self Portrait as nijinski, 2019, oil and oil stick on canvas, cm. 34×29 (Courtesy the artist, Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

George Rouy, A conversation #1, 2018, acrylic on canvas, cm. 80×6 (Courtesy the artist, Hannah Barry Gallery, London & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

George Rouy, A secret #2, 2018, acrylic on canvas, cm. 80×65 (Courtesy the artist, Hannah Barry Gallery, London & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

Peter Shear, Correction Fluid, 2018, acrylic on canvas, cm. 25,4×20,3 (Courtesy the artist, Fortnight Institute, New York & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

Peter Shear, Copenhagen, 2018, acrylic on canvas, cm. 25,4×20,3 (Courtesy the artist, Fortnight Institute, New York & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

Sofia Silva, Self-Potrait with Pearl Necklace, 2017-18, oil and charcoal on canvas, cm. 50×70 (Courtesy the artist & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

Sofia Silva, Porky, 2018, oil and oil pastel on canvas, cm. 60×50 (Courtesy the artist & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

Tamina Amadyar, Azur, 2018, pigment and glutin on canvas, cm. 200×160 (Courtesy the artist, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero

Tamina Amadyar, Nolita, 2018, Pigment and glutin on canvas cm. 200×160 (Courtesy the artist, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin & P420, Bologna), photo: C.Favero