June 13 – July 11, 2015
Steve Turner is pleased to present Inscripción en la Tierra, the first United States exhibition of Buenos Aires-based artist Joaquín Boz. The artist uses paper, as opposed to canvas, as the support for his abstract paintings and drawings that are saturated in either oil and graphite. Utilizing an elemental color palette, Boz alternates between monumentally large-scale works and those that are the size of a small magazine. His process is one of rumination and revision, of gesture and thought. For his paintings, he soaks the paper in oil and manipulates paint across the slick surface using various implements, including his hands. The oil produces a varied and dynamic texture on the paper, from translucent to opaque, which adds depth to the abstract markings. For his graphite drawings, he covers the entirety of the paper’s surface so that the result is as sculptural as it is graphic—the finished work looks like a hammered sheet of metal. Both processes demonstrate a concern for surface which results in a visceral transmutation of each material: the paint slides across an altered version of what was once natural paper, now transformed with a life of its own; the graphite builds upon itself to create a texture that activates and envelops its surface.
Joaquín Boz (born 1987, Buenos Aires) studied at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires under the direction of Jorge Macchi. He has had a solo exhibition with Móvil, Buenos Aires (2014) and was awarded the First Prize Salón Nacional de Rosario, Buenos Aires (2015). He will be included in My Buenos Aires, curated by Albertine de Galbert, at La Maison Rouge, Paris (2015) and will be featured in a two-person presentation at ArtBO, Bogotá (2015) and ARCO Madrid (2016).
