Manzanillo, Cuba, 1981
Lives and works in Madrid, Spain
The paintings of Alejandro Campins conjure dreamlike states and spaces of uncanny landscapes and ambiguous structures, of observed reality and illusory imagination. In Campins work, technique and imagery come together to evoke otherwordly atmospheres that suggest emptiness but at the same time seem filled with a psychological charge that is a powerful as it is silent.
Executed primarily in oil paint (as well as with watercolor and pencil), Campins canvases display a classically-gorunded command of line and composition and a heightened sensibility for chromatic hues and overtones. His brushwork is subtle but assured and his use of color is muted but finaly calibrated, yielding veiled and seemingly weathered surfaces that echo the content of the paintings’ imagery.
In Campins’s work there is sense that past and future are overlaid, remembrance and imagination are intertwined, permanence and impermanence co-exist. Ultimately, the paintings, through their enigmatic simplicity, emanate a quality of timelessness – the timelessness of dreams, of memory, of ruins, even of death. As Campins has commented about his work: “I am interested in simple forms that hide great stories”.
Institutional Exhibitions
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2022Fondazione Giuliani, Rome. Perpetuare - dislocate - perpetuate
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201958th Biennale di Venezia, Cuban Pavilion, Isola di San Servolo. Entorno aleccionador
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2019XIII Bienal de la Habana. La construcción de lo posible
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2018Centro Wifredo Lam. Miedo a la muerte es miedo a la verdad
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2016Fototeca de Cuba, Havana. Los ojos de la percepción
Publications
