Frecuencias

Álvaro Borobio (1984, Madrid, Spain) is a visual artist based in Spain and a recurrent visitor to Mexico City. His artistic practice has focused on painting and installation. His initial university studies in architecture have been decisive in the development of his plastic work. The professional teachings he acquired during his training are reflected in the formal solutions of his compositions: first he conceives the space and then builds the urban landscape. Much of his work reflects on contemporary and historical cities, as well as the energy visible in their streets, coming from the inhabitants and tourists.

During his student years, the artist wished that architecture could be used to transform everyday life; however, the structured and, in that sense, limited methodology showed him that the scopes were insufficient for his creative process, and that the framework for action was small. It was thus that he found his distinctive language in visuality to paint unimaginable spaces.

After almost two decades of experimentation, this selection of works shows his mastery of the support and the solidity of the forms. Mexico has become one of his main interests for the creation of his work, specifically the particular beauty of the city and the contrasts of urban landscapes. Aesthetic accidents, such as cracked pavement, street graffiti on the walls of buildings, and the combination of vernacular and modern designs in the city’s buildings, are characteristics that he shares with Spain and are references that inspire a good part of his strokes. This shows us that Borobio’s influences emerge from his affinity of temperament with
other painters. He speaks of external stimuli, he feeds from various sides, and Mexico is a
factory of ideas in his most recent production.

This first solo exhibition of the artist in the country exhibits a set of eight works and ten drawings made during his residence in Mexico City and in two cities in Spain: Granada and Madrid, between 2019 and 2024. The canvases were created during periods of up to four years and elaborated with mixtures of multiple techniques and diverse materials on canvas.

This body of work proposes an account of his travels back and forth between the two cities through his plans and sketches. The constructions of the past, built centuries ago, are present now and emerge with flashes of color or abstract natural landscapes. It is, undoubtedly, another way of showing us the layers generated by the passage of time.

The stains and splashes of paint that cover the entire canvas are the apparent solutions to represent these cities, but in the background there are buildings and ruins drawn in juxtaposed perspectives, designed without the traditional method, traced with thin lines. The first tour of a perspective awakens the desire to make another one on the traces of urban landscapes saturated with color. Although they appear to be cities devoid of human presence, it underlies the inscriptions, as notes or comments on the canvases.

Some of the works shown are fragments of large format pieces (10 x 2 m or 40 x 10 m). This operation of the artist invites us to rethink the support, the scope and dimensions of painting. For him there are other spatial possibilities: the support can be flexible and not always rigid, a
characteristic that can make the painting passable or fragmentable and that allows the creation
of scenarios in the exhibition space.