2016

L21, Palma de Mallorca

For ART-O-RAM 2016, Palma de Mallorca-based gallery L21 will present a solo booth by Rafa Forteza (Palma de Mallorca, 1935).

From the threshold of painting, Rafa Forteza makes an effort to convert his pieces in funnels, allowing a plurality of perceptions and interpretations. A funnel is a visionary tool which opens up the fissure which conducts us from the infinite magma of forms and colours to the sparkling outward appearance of his works. These are paintings and sculptures which call for a demanding spectator who is familiar with the big issues of contemporary art. There’s nothing permanent nor irrefutable in Forteza’s artistic universe, for him, art doesn’t have rules and is subject to constant changes. He works constantly in his artworks, which are only finished once they leave his studio.

Forteza’s work is made through a slowly process of accumulation. The artist combines different elements on the same surface. He piles up materials, assembling and linking, as if it was a puzzle, the pieces that conform his sculptures and paintings. Their complex structure provoke questions that do not have an easy answer and are opened to different possibilities.

His works are created from an alphabet that Forteza has acquired and developed using the same words and concepts. There is a dialogue between the works and the artist, he listens to them in order to understand and complete them. He doesn’t conceive the creative process as a game, because it has no rules, and each game needs certain regulations that one has to know in advanced. The artist doesn’t believe in explaining too much the meaning of his works. He aims to create something that makes the people react and feel. His paintings and sculptures do not have instructions to understand them, he believes that they have to make questions to the audience.

http://www.l21gallery.com