SWAB Barcelona Art Fair | 2020

Clandestina participates this year at SWAB Barcelona Art Fair in the section EMERGING. EMERGING presents local and international galleries founded between 2015 and 2020.

Clandestina presents a pairing between a selection of paintings by Bhakti Baxter (US, 1979) and Elizabeth de Jesús (México, 1978) in the context of a wall sculpture by Yasmin Spiro (Jamaica, 1974).

De Jesús’ paintings from the series IM BAU make reference to the spirit of demolished and lost architectural structures that have left behind scaring in neighboring buildings, allowing us to wonder about the homes and people that once occupied an area that is now just air.  De Jesús work follows the rigor of traditional painting with the point of view of current life observations. The choice of colors, materials, and treatment of the artist’s choice of conversation poses a meaningful question in regards to the spaces that we embrace as home and shelter.

Bhakti Baxter is known for his compositions based in organic shapes with origin on mathematical structures, the organization of these shapes, and the triggering of the materials’ behavior.  Baxter observes dynamic and potential as part of his process.  From his concrete block compositions to his sculptural collages Baxter has remained a tool of his own works in order to place in them the ability to navigate shape, content, and message.

The work Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines by Yasmin Spiro frames the Geist of this show. Defined by the artist as a work to shelter; it modulates the conversation between de Jesús ghosts of private places and Baxter’s materialization of organic forces.  The plaster and fabric wall sculpture was conceptualized by the artist as a response to the 2016 American presidential election, creating an object that allowed her to build a totem of safety.