Galerie Lelong & Co., New York to Represent Juan Uslé
Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, is pleased to now represent Juan Uslé (b. 1954). Represented by the Paris location of the gallery since 2011, Uslé’s relationship with the gallery will now extend to New York. A selection of the artist’s recent paintings and works on paper will be presented in the gallery’s online Viewing Room through June 18, 2020.
In a four-decade career between Saro, Spain, and New York City, Uslé has worked primarily in painting and photography. His vivid paintings and works on paper are characterized by their entrancing rhythmic patterns.
Often associated with the reemergence of abstract painting in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Uslé’s work is widely recognized for gestural brushstrokes that are systematically applied to canvas while guided by the artist’s own heartbeat. The sequential rhythm resulting from this performative act generates a vibrating, atmospheric sensation of varying intensity. Up close in large- and small-scale paintings, the brushstrokes reveal a state of intrinsic duality: repetition yet singularity.
“I mean to discover what is essentially different in every painting, treating each painting as an equal-size body, but with a different soul,” Uslé says. He refers to his groups of works as “families,” of which the best known is Soñe que revelabas [I Dreamt That You Revealed], originated in 1997 and ongoing.
Uslé summons inspiration from landscapes and memories both lived and dreamt: vibrations in bustling New York City, the fluidity of rivers and uncharted bodies of water, the colors of childhood in northern Spain. In recent years, the use of light to generate emotion rather than volume has been a central focus for the artist.
Mary Sabbatino, Vice President/Partner at Galerie Lelong & Co., says, “After nine years with Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, we are pleased to welcome Juan Uslé to the gallery in New York. Uslé’s embrace of the emotional and sensorial dimensions of abstraction and the relationship to the natural world amplifies many of the values within the gallery’s program, while opening a new door into formal language.”
