01.02. 30.03.2019

Bernhard Knaus Fine Art
Niddastrasse 84
D – 60329 Frankfurt am Main

 

An encounter with the works of painter Giacomo Santiago Rogado (b.
1979) is characterized by seductive fascination. A colorful ballad with a
hypnotic effect, they immediately capture the viewer’s imagination.
Rogado’s abstract paintings are inspired by meditation. The painter’s
thematic engagement with contemplation and deceleration runs through his
entire oeuvre, for which he primarily employs materials such as oil,
pigment or acrylic paint on canvas.

Bernhard Knaus Fine Art
presents the two painting series Coalescence (2014-2018) and Intuition
(2016-2018) in the exhibition “Depth of Field.” Rogado’s painting
practice centers on the visual effect of the rhythmic movement of color
and shape, as well as their influence on our perception of depth of
field. Rogado uses two distinct techniques when creating his works,
which oscillate between painterly accuracy and chance, between hypnotic
effect and meditative dimension.

The pieces of the Coalescence
series employ two additive colors each. The symmetrical curving lines
cutting through the center of the respective canvas create a
three-dimensional effect that conjures up associations of spirals. The
focused work necessary for creating these pieces with their accurate
lines requires the artist to enter a meditative state. The lines
converge on the center of each of these pieces in a manner reminiscent
of centripetal force, thus creating the optical effect of a rhythmic
surface that pulls you in.

In contrast to the Coalescence pieces,
which the painter realizes perfectly and with great concentration,
Rogado looks to controlled chance for his painting series Intuition. In
order to create the large-scale works dominated by colorful inky
blotches, he thus places untreated canvases in a trough filled with
water, in order to then carefully apply color pigments. While each work
is based on a considered combination of colors, the formal composition
is created intuitively. The characteristic effect is consequently
achieved through the water evaporating. The contrasting and in part
blurry areas of color have something of a hypnotizing effect, as we try
to follow and focus on the forms on the canvas. The paintings conjure up
associations with single-celled organisms, sponges or the cosmos. For
the painter, the process of working is at the forefront of his thinking.
The interplay of colors, forms and movement exerts a hypnotic pull on
the viewer that is hard to resist.

In this context, the title
“Depth of Field” appears like a word play intended to sensitize us to
the contemplation of the works. Rogado himself describes his works as
“rooms,” which he frequents, and to which he thus attributes
three-dimensionality. At the same time, he speaks of painting as a
“thought process that has materialized on the surface of the canvas.”
Visitors to the exhibition will find it easy to move around these
spaces, to journey inward and to allow their gaze upon themselves and
their environment to be sharpened – quite in keeping with meditation.