Raúl Domínguez at CarrerasMugica

Artist: Raúl Domínguez

Exhibition title: Half an hour of sunshine

Venue: CarrerasMugica, Bilbao, Spain

Date: May 27 – July 29, 2022

Photography: Ander Sagastiberri / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and CarrerasMugica, Bilbao

CarrerasMugica is pleased to present, from 27 May to 29 July, Media hora de sol, Raúl Domínguez’s third solo exhibition at the gallery after those held in 2014 and 2016.

Page. As support and format. When I start to draw I think of each page as the leaf of a tree I don’t know. I’d like the drawings to offer themselves as an extension of life. Horizontal, vertical. The two directions of the page. One or other, depending on the motif or the mood. Horizontal is already a given even before the first line, it is already there. Vertical is more a question of what happens, of action. For a grid to unfurl on the walls of the gallery corridor in these two directions and in these two meanings, horizon and event. Yellow on white. Sun. First drawing with yellow on the blank sheet is like drawing with the sun in your eyes. Draw with the sun. I then return with a pencil over this latent image, reiterating what’s right and altering what’s not. In this way I can focus on and indulge in the details, those points of the scene that whimsically define the image, like a constellation. Contour. I now have two lines for a contour, one yellow and another grey. It’s something new. At first, it was a practical decision to prevent the weight of each stroke, but the sun made its way in, undoing the limits and paving way for the unthinkable. And. Conjunction. I wanted to limit myself to that. I look at one thing and then another and I place myself a little to the side to see what happens. In the drawings that are able to hold the gaze, the spot-on and the flawed sit side by side. The other day there was something jarring about that drawing I don’t understand (the one of the girl in leggings), but I wasn’t able to take it off the wall. As if some secret splendour was contained in all its blunders. A bunch of mistakes finding a balance. I see this enigma as a door to return to reality, even if it is a very small and fragile drawing, a very real door. More than correcting, it’s a case of moving things around until they find their place. Stoppage. I’ve had to sit down on the day. After the siesta, the sound of cowbells, behind the rocks, cannot be called reality. Fade to silence. The smell of nettles, the colour of nettles, the shape of nettles. Settle into insipidness and undecidedness. Swimming in that regenerating emptiness. Starting out from there, the movement and structure come of their own will. Complexity. Suddenly there is a structure that accommodates everything. At the same time I was able to look at themes, colour and form straight on and from the side, from a different distance that gave me room to manoeuvre. Yesterday I didn’t make any new object but I did something that turned all the drawings into available material. Tools to deal with complexity: before facing the total image, to make small rearrangements and then move those piles of images about. Exhibition. Horizontal expansion that seeks neither beginning nor end. Advancing like the course of a river, though you don’t know in what direction. Joy. Another way of saying belief in what is underway, the realization that disorder could be a yet unknown order. Believe in the brightness of enunciation. Half an hour of sunshine.

Raúl Domínguez (Barakaldo, 1984) holds a degree in Fine Arts from the EHU-UPV. His latest exhibitions include Es ir a at Galería Pelaires (Palma de Mallorca), Después del 68. Prácticas Artísticas en el País Vasco 1968-2018 at the Museo de Bellas Artes (Bilbao) and Casi al azar at TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (Santa Cruz de Tenerife). His work is present in public and private collections such as Tequila 1800 (Mexico), Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz) and Colección Mariano Yera (Madrid).