June Crespo at Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery

Artist: June Crespo

Exhibition title: Voy, sí

Venue: Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery, Madrid, Spain

Date: November 7 – December 15, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery, Madrid

The change in scale of an everyday object, a triangle formed by the union of the thumbs and index fingers of two hands, the representation of a conduit, and the shell like translucent skin of a mould are some of the gestures and visions from which June Crespo has developed the set of new sculptures that make up Voy, sí, her first solo exhibition at Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery.

The gesture and its possible variations, or ‘translation’, a term often used by the artist when speaking about her work, are central elements in June Crespo’s sculptural practice. Situated in a stage prior to discourse, the process, the act of doing generates different approaches to the work, heading in one direction and then another. No line is drawn in advance, the simple origin of the work – in this case, the change of scale, the reference to a triangle formed by hands, or the image of a mould of a hip and legs – undergoes an intense displacement, a deformation of the starting point, an estrangement that places the artist in an unknown position from which the work springs forth from a mixture of intuition and perseverance, trial and error.

Although the pieces seem to possess a dense and robust materiality, the movement taking place in them, the emptying and constant modification, the encounter between them, sometimes fortuitous, sometimes accidental, yet other times conscious, generates a firm yet fluid sculpture in which channels, hollows and openings reveal spaces that suggest a certain notion of circulation and current through holes, knots, ties and anchors.

The pieces in concrete and rebar, to which beeswax, paraffin and various textiles have been added, work like a bone structure, in an alienated and disjointed mechanics that moves away from the representation of the everyday object used as a mould. In turn, the works in resin, shells of lost polystyrene blocks, some incorporating prints on acetate sheets, work as conduits and translucent skins. The works using silicone and resin moulds of various kinds that are integrated in the landscape of June Crespo’s workshop, alongside pipes, wooden beams, radiators and dry flowers, these give rise to a body of work in which the different languages associated with different materials are integrated in layers and strata that are discovered in channels and grooves revealed by the cavities and hollows of the sculpture itself.

While the work is continuous and constant and some methodologies and exercises are repeated in the workshop, the position of each of the works, their relationship with space, situates them in a distinct and independent place, with a logic of their own.

And in that distortion, that ambivalence of pieces that are at once both open and closed, which approach hieratism but welcome us as a refuge, these sculptures acquire an autonomy that distances them both from what they originally were and from their conception as a group.

June Crespo, ST (Voy, sí), 2020, Concrete, pigments, steel rebar, beeswax, clay and textiles, 52 x 84 x 70 cm

June Crespo, ST (Voy, sí), 2020, Silicone, pigments, flowers, polyurethane resin and textile, 24 x 64 x 29 cm

June Crespo, Voy, sí, 2020, exhibition view, Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery, Madrid

June Crespo, ST (Voy, sí), 2020, Concrete, pigments and wax, 61 x 25,5 x 15,5 cm

June Crespo, ST (Voy, sí), 2020, UV prints on acetate, 110,5 x 149 cm

June Crespo, Voy, sí, 2020, exhibition view, Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery, Madrid

June Crespo, ST (Voy, sí), 2020, Equestrian girth and harness hardened with resin and bronze, 37 x 97 x 27 cm

June Crespo, Voy, sí, 2020, exhibition view, Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery, Madrid

June Crespo, ST (Voy, sí), 2020, Polyester resin and fiberglass, 38 x 118 x 77 cm

June Crespo, ST (Voy, sí), 2020, Concrete, steel rebar, beeswax, paraffin, and clay, 34 x 75 x 65 cm; ST (Voy, sí), 2020, Concrete, steel rebar, textile and clay, 39 x 85 x 62 cm