Marcelo Vergara Martinez

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Marcelo Vergara Martinez paints out of necessity. For Marcelo, his paintings are spaces in which he can live and travel. His abstract style is a language that lives inside himself, that over the years has become an instinct or another sense. 

 

Since his teenage years, scrawling through encyclopaedias of art in his local library in Concepcion, Chile, Marcelo has always painted abstract art. He was inspired by the original Abstract Expressionists like Rothko, Pollock, Still et al. who developed a new style of art in response to their concern over the state of humanity post World War II. Marcelo undeniably experienced similar sentiments growing up in a tumultuous political environment which saw a dictatorship take control in his early 20’s, when he moved to the capital city Santiago. 

 

For Marcelo and for abstract expressionists generally, the authenticity or value of their work lies in its directness and immediacy of expression. A painting is meant to be a revelation of the artist’s authentic identity. The gesture or style, the artist’s “signature,” is evidence of the actual process of the work’s creation. 

 

In each part of the different processes, elements are created that contribute to the sense of places, landscapes, locations, horizons. These are generated by the aesthetic structure of the artwork which is marked out by fields of colour that capture the physical movements produced by certain emotions and memories, that ultimately leave you with a visual interpretation of such feelings. The real world is the starting point for an inward creative process.

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Marcelo Vergara Martinez. a young Chilean painter, studied in the prestigious Universidad de Concepción in Southern Chile. The work he is exhibiting in London has been motivated by 1950s American expressionism and by an intention to explore and enjoy the conversion from a theme into an abstract depiction.

 

He perceives a dynamic line between the original perception of a subject, its storing in memory and a nearly automatic process in which the painter’s hand records it on the canvas. The painter sees himself as a witness of this process, watching with detachment what he sees as a transit from reality to canvas. What drives him is an enjoyment of watching the process taking place.

 

His work presents the paradox of bending dimension from the very minimal to the suggestion of large spaces, all filtered through the individual vision of the painter that operates from a sense of solitude but also with references to the large spaces and a minimalist existence in his country on the extreme south of the planet. The abstract quality of his paintings invites a diversity of readings.

 

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Marcelo Vergara Martinez , joven pintor chileno, estudió en la prestigiosa Universidad de Concepción en el sur de Chile. El trabajo que muestra en Londres ha sido motivado, en sus propias palabras, por el expresionismo estadounidense de los años 50 y una intención de explorar el tránsito desde un tema hacia su abstracción pictórica.

 

Percibe una línea dinámica entre la percepción original del motivo, su posterior registro en la memoria y un proceso casi automático en el que la mano del pintor lo registra en el lienzo. El pintor se ve como un testigo de este proceso, observando objetivamente lo que ve como un tránsito desde la realidad hasta el lienzo. Lo que lo impulsa es el disfrute de observar este proceso mientras se desarrolla.

 

Su trabajo enfrenta la paradoja de distorsionar la dimensión desde lo más mínimo hacia la sugestión de enormes espacios, todo filtrado a través de la visión particular del pintor, que opera desde un sentido de soledad pero también con referencias a los grandes espacios y una experiencia minimalista en su país al extremo del planeta. La cualidad abstracta de sus pinturas invita una diversidad de lecturas.