Workshop of JUAN DE VALDÉS LEAL (Seville, 1622-1690).

JUAN USLÉ (Santander, 1954). Untitled, 1990. Vinyl, oil and pigments on canvas adhered to board. Presents label of the Soledad Lorenzo gallery (Madrid). Signed, dated and located (New York) on the back. Measurements: 56 x 41 cm. Provenance: -Soledad Lorenzo Gallery, Madrid (label on the back). -Private collection. -Private collection, Madrid, 2021. In this work Uslé proposes to the spectator a contrast between opposites that he exercises both through the forms and the chromatic tonalities. To this end, he constructs a composition in which superimposed languages come together. The vertical lines are composed of other diagonal lines, which harmonise with each other, giving greater dynamism to the verticality of the work. This work belongs to a mature period of his American period, in which his colours are transformed and his pictorial technique becomes more varied. He paints lines, floating forms, intense colours, undulating backgrounds and multicoloured stripes. It is inevitable to situate Uslé in a context, both Spanish and international, where his work takes shape. It is essential to take into account the influence of Mondrian's neoplasticism, Reinhardt's black colour, the strength of the brushstroke of the late Kooning, Newman's zips and Picabia's machine paintings. According to the artist himself, disorder in space is essential in his work. Also important are the visual calm he learned from Fellini's film "8 ½", and the fantastic imaginary of the Jules Verne novels he read in his youth. In fact, Uslé conceives his painting as a journey without a destination, the goal of which is at the disposal of the painting itself, endowing the work with a complete autonomy indissolubly linked to abstraction. An artist based between New York and Saro (Cantabria), he has collaborated with the Soledad Lorenzo gallery in Madrid since 1993. Juan Uslé studied Fine Arts at the Escuela Superior de San Carlos (Valencia, 1973-77), later extending his studies with the Scholarship for Young Artists (1980) and the Scholarship for Research into New Expressive Forms (1982), both from the Ministry of Culture. In 1984 he took part for the first time in the Arco fair, and two years later he moved to New York with his partner, the artist Victoria Civera. In 1992 he took part in the Documenta in Kassel, and in 1996 the IVAM dedicated his first retrospective exhibition to him, a recognition which was followed in 2002 by the National Prize for Plastic Arts. Throughout his career, Uslé has held exhibitions in leading museums and galleries such as the MACBA, the Saatchi in London, the Serralves Museum, the Es Baluard in Palma, the Ludwig Museum in Vienna and the New MoMA in New York, although his anthological exhibition "Open Rooms", presented in 2003 at the Palacio de Velázquez in Madrid, the Marcelino Botín Foundation in Santander, the S.M.A.K. Museum in Ghent and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, is particularly noteworthy for its importance. Juan Uslé is currently represented in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Es Baluard in Palma, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Saatchi Collection, the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain in Paris, the Marugame Hirai Museum in Japan and the Tate Modern in London, among other collections.