Library Street Collective is thrilled to announce Polarities, an exhibition of new works in painting and sculpture by critically acclaimed multimedia artist José Parlá. Parlá is known for his skillful engagement with the rich history of painting while infusing ephemeral elements and the life cycles of cities. Built with countless layers of texture, script, acrylic, plaster, and paper collage, his works communicate the passage of time within city neighborhoods where advertisements, writing, construction, and demolition leave their impressions steadily over time. In describing his work, Parlá makes connections between environment, history, and perception: "It is psychological. To read it is not to look at what is written simply; it is about deciphering the feeling. I call it reading through feeling, those textures and marks symbolizing the psycho-geographical traces of memory."
The chemical contest that ensues when mixing acrylic and oil mediums is evident at the top of this piece where the paint appears to have flaked off creating intentional distress. Chunks of dried paint are stuck back in toward bottom. Thin hairs of color generate visual energy. This piece reminds of Julie Mehretu while looser and more spontaneous.
Several of Parlá’s paintings start with a dark base making the lively strings of color on the surface pop. The variety of golds laid over the brick red lends warmth only briefly disrupted by a hint of blue.
Similar in palette to Resistance, Prose’s lean, off-center composition allows the charcoals to dictate the mood then finishes off with confetti paint shards. The impact of scale on these pieces cannot be overstated.
A revision of Kubrick’s 2001’s monolith looks rescued from any one of Detroit’s abandoned industrial buildings. Here Parlá compares Detroit and Havana exploring how humans migrate; what holds them to a city, what prompts them to move and what’s left behind when they do.
The real story here is Parlá himself who suffered a debilitating case of covid and was told he’d never paint again. These pieces are a testament to motion as he relearned the physicality of large-scale mark making resulting in joyous lines of rediscovered freedom. In a landscape laden with conceptually and representationally messaged work, well-executed pure abstraction is a feast.
On view through August 24th at Library Street Collective 1274 Library Street (Alley)
*images are mine
direct quote from gallery materials
SHOWS OPEN THIS WEEKEND
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