Jorge Rosano Gamboa

Saenger Gallery presents the solo show bulto/niebla/piel by Jorge Rosano Gamboa.

The most recent series of paintings by Jorge Rosano Gamboa (Mexico City, 1984) draws its potential for synthesis and abstraction from the pre-Columbian universe. While the resulting work preserves the identity of his references, such as the pre-Hispanic cultures of central Mexico, it also cites a type of conception in painting after Minimalism and Hard Edge; a way of thinking about painting close to the style of Ellsworth Kelly.

In coincidence with the New York painter, Rosano Gamboa has also explored and enriched his pictorial practice from his experience in the fields of photography, sculpture and drawing, taking the translation of media beyond the interdisciplinary. With this approach, Rosano Gamboa creates a work that wanders freely from the concept of approximation, or as Kelly once commented, “seeing something and then translating how I see it.”

For his first individual presentation at Saenger Gallery, Jorge Rosano Gamboa has developed an unpublished project for the Project Room that consists of a new series of paintings that originate in the two-dimensionality of the drawing (with color fields and well-defined contours that at the same time fragment and isolate the exposed image) and that appeal to the volumetric nature of the body represented in idols and pre-Hispanic objects (in such a way that the density of the oilstick placed on the linen evokes a mass or flesh similar to that of clay, or the polished surface of a volcanic stone). Hence the title of the exhibition, since it is, more than a translation of drawing to sculpture through painting, an approach to drawing and sculpture from painting, including that impossibility of a certainty or white noise that is the fog.

Additionally, Rosano Gamboa's current work continues to investigate the artist's interest in time materialized in artifacts that have a historical and psycho-affective irradiation. In accordance with the focus and intention of the works, the image gallery of this exhibition includes multifaceted Mexica deities irreducible to a single condition, such as Xochipilli, Mictlantecuhtli and Xipe Tótec (representations related to the rituals that promote both life and death through various avatars: the flower, the song, the underworld, the seed, the skinning and the corn) and which we recognize in Rosano Gamboa's painting by some of its characteristics, as he approaches and sees: the toothed pectoral in Xochipilli, the navel-fruit in Mictlantecuhtli and the detachment of the skin in Xipe Tótec. In any case, the work gathered in “lump/fog/skin” by Jorge Rosano Gamboa revolves around creations that summon our amazement from their mystery.

—Christian Barragan

Jorge Rosano Gamboa

(Mexico City, 1984)

He resides between Mexico City and Antwerp. Jorge Rosano Gamboa graduated from the Bachelor of Visual Arts at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving La Esmeralda (INBAL, 2011) and attended the SOMA Educational Program (2017). Among his solo exhibitions are “Impermanencia” (MUCA Rome, Mexico City, 2013 / Museo Latino, Omaha Nebraska, 2014), “Ominus” (1919 Gallery, Berlin, 2016), “Pentimento” (Galería Breve, Mexico City , 2017), “LANDLORDS” (Filet Space, London, 2018), “U” (Casa Equis, Mexico City, 2020), “The Blue of Distance” (Acme, Mexico City, 2022), “In The en Medio” (LaNao, Mexico City, 2023) and “Crosscross Spectrum” (Lateral, Mexico City, 2024). Collectively, he has shown his work in spaces such as the Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art, Museo Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Museum of Contemporary Art of Querétaro, Centro de la Imagen, Capilla del Arte (Universidad de las Américas Puebla), Casa Wabi, Neurotitan Gallery (Berlin), Efraín López Gallery (Chicago), Chalton Gallery (London) and The Front Gallery (New Orleans). He has participated in art fairs in Mexico, Korea, Amsterdam, Spain and Lima; He has also participated in the Photography Biennial (Centro de la Imagen, 2016 and 2018) and has carried out the residencies 18th Street Art Center (Los Angeles, USA, 2023), Dein Jahr (Loitz, Germany, 2021), Casa Wabi (Puerto Escondido, 2019), Shed (Jilotepec, 2019), Project T (Project H, Mexico City, 2018) and Neurotitan (Berlín, 2016), among others.

—Saenger Gallery