April 19, 2019 at h27 in Shanghai, China
Elias Peña’s paintings are based off his observations of everyday life, moments of community and intimacy in public spaces: elderly men playing games by a curb, children rushing out of school, people waiting in traffic.
In each work, the artist offers a process of finding the narrative capacity of reality and people around us while expressing these stories in a unique vocabulary. Figuration and abstraction, chaos and harmony, the instant that separates accident from chance. Instead of rigid representations of reality, each scene aspires to portray something closer to the subjectivity of human consciousness: a distillation of personal experience, of a particular moment that remains open and fluid to the viewer’s interpretation.
This compilation of works is installed in a sort of chaos of equilibrium itself, as the choice of displaying them inside a home lends them an added layer of intimacy and normalcy, thereby positioning the audience as comfortable voyeurs.
