Tomlinson Kong Contemporary is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in New York City by the Catalan-born, Spanish artist Jordi Alcaraz entitled DEIXANTS I PORTES.

The nearly two-dozen paintings and sculptures in this exhibition are explicitly not meant to relate to any preconceived theory, verbalization, or specific intent. Unlike much contemporary, rational art that represents predetermined ideas or concepts existing outside the object, Alcaraz is dedicated to the process of creating without intention. His poetic, reverent work explores the notion that once something is named it begins to disappear. This act automatically limits the object’s success to only its ability to achieve the definition of this thing rather than its ability to be something wholey new.

The title of this exhibition, loosely translated to Wakes and Doors, is not introducing themes that the artist has explored but is rather meant to explain that the work in the exhibition is all that remains of the artist’s process of making. A common hallmark of Alcaraz’s work is the rupture or manipulation of a glass or acrylic surface. These ruptures behave as doors or corridors pointing the eye toward the space separating the viewer from the work while deixants, the word used for the trail or path left by ships or stars, suggests that work is capturing the essence, or trails, of the artist’s actions.

Alcaraz’s work hangs on the wall with the physical presence of sculpture and the considered quiet of post-minimalist painting. The substantial wooden frames define a deep, interior space occupied by paintings and embedded objects and materials like steel, hand-made books, staples, stones and glass eyes, that achieve a unique, composited form. For example, in Idees Per A Dibuixos (Ideas for Drawing), there is no image, nothing to remind us of an idea, only the clarity of liquid paint and the effect of the warped glass that appears to ooze or melt as a result of its proximity to the dark, dripping material. Similarly, in Somiar (or Dream), a paraffin wax sculpture suggesting a head, rests on its side pushing the acrylic vitrine out as if the force of the dream created a dynamic thrust against the plastic restraint.