7 to 27 March 2021 "Solo aire" exhibition - Javier Balmaseda - Text Aminda Saludes, curator

Ideales revolucionarios - oil - 110 x 90 cm

A few days ago, we very successfully inaugurated the exhibition SOLO AIRE by artist Javier Balmaseda. The show has aroused much interest as it is the first time the artist exhibits in a private art gallery in Andorra in over 20 years and as many art critics and specifically the art critic Henry Périer, believe in his work. Referring to the installation “Fixed in contemporaneity” Périer writes: 

“(…This installation, with the same force of the Cry by Munch, allows Balmaseda to attain, using the full range of his abilities, a maturity that generates a faith in art and in life seen here for the first time in his work…)”

Born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, 25th December 1971, his mother a teacher and his father a mechanic, Javier Balmaseda shows an early vocation. He first follows courses at the Elementary School of Plastic Art and later passes the exam for entry to the National school of Plastic Arts in Havana. Two years later he enters the Advanced Institute of Art of Havana. 

This new body of work, SOLO AIRE, consists of 11 oil paintings and it is the first time ever that one of his exhibitions is based on one medium.  

The concept of his narrative is based on negating the content - explicit in the established symbol – that he supports with his powerful and smoky drawings of charcoal on paper and are an essential part of his creative process- to then transfer the idea to an oil painting on a canvas support- always emphasizing with his brushstrokes on the sketchy gestuality.

His works have been shown in the context of the FIAC, with Art Élysées, alongside the works of the great American photographer Joel-Peter Witkin and Jean Dubuffet – the famous French painter and sculptor of the second half of the XX century.

Balmaseda represented Andorra at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 with the installation of sculptures and drawings “Fixed in contemporaneity” in the Nappe dell’ Arsenale, and composed by 10 taxidermied real horses that looked truer than nature, whose legs had been cut off and replaced by hydraulic car shock-absorbers.