Paul Muguet

Galería RGR is pleased to present Pictorial Warps, Paul Muguet’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

The exhibit includes a selection of works that belong to three series he began in 2016. The common interest of these series focuses on the recovery of Mexican textile motifs that are part of the culture and visual identity to recontextualize them in the art world through painting. The exhibition will be presented from July 16 to September 10, 2022.

For the development of each series, Paul Muguet started with a specific object: the sarape, the petate, and the rug, elements that have been part of everyday life in Mexico since ancient times. Each one has social and technical symbolisms that are mixed with abstraction, geometry and some formal elements of painting.

The compositional principle in paintings that belong to the Sarapes series is the textile weave of Saltillo’s typical sarapes in northern Mexico. This fabric is characterized by its vivid colors and the gradients that recall the sunrises and sunsets in the fields. According to the artists, the purpose of this series is to capture attention through an active surface with high color intensity that seems to be moving and changing.

The second series is linked to the petate. A type of woven palm mat traditionally used as a sleeping surface, for dying food under the sun, for giving birth, or as a shroud. From this element, Paul Muguet took up the diagonal pattern to interweave colors and make evident the pigment’s body and texture. The act of weaving with color predominates in this series and gives the artist endless possibilities to employ different color palettes to generate diverse compositions.

In his Tapetes series, the rhombus is the main motif. In Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico, tapestries rugs are made using the loom technique, and one of the recurring elements is this figure, related to plow and ground fertility. Muguet mirrors this nature relationship in some of his works by the use of primary colors, devoid of any secondary alteration.

With the development of these series, Paul Muguet generated an interest in the notion of textile and the concept of weaving. The act of interweaving or intertwining one element with another reflects a metaphor of unity and interaction. His paintings are objects at a middle point, in a cross between the symbolism of Mexican textiles and abstract painting.

Pictorial Warps covers a six year work focused on painting that revives symbolisms of objects that have accompanied subjects throughout their lives; those elements that the Mexican community has integrated as part of its cultural ordinariness. Through the weaving of different colors and patterns on each work surface, Paul Muguet has gathered diverse color atmospheres with a sensation of balance and harmony. His works confront the viewer by their verticality and proportion related to the human body and the portrait to manifest the vitality that exists in the fronting between work and viewer.

— Galería RGR