Sin título (Untitled)

Juan Uslé’s style of painting has been described as ‘lyrical abstraction’ due to its strong emotional charge and connection to personal and sensory experience. He established a pictorial language that converses both with the strength of Spanish tradition and international avant-garde trends. His participation in the first ARCO Art Fair in 1982, represented by the Montenegro Gallery, marked a turning point in his career, giving him early international exposure and making him a leading example for how Spanish artists could become part of the global scene without renouncing their
identity. For Uslé, ‘the eye is the brain’, and his painting espouses a more poetic rather than narrative way of viewing the world. This piece shows the experimental nature of his early painting, as presented in the exhibition Veintiséis pintores, trece críticos: Panorama de la joven pintura española
(1982–83) [Twenty-Six Painters, Thirteen Critics: Panorama of Young Spanish Painting (1982–1983)]. In this piece, he creates an imaginary landscape, a synthesis of reality and memory, using soft colours applied in layers and exploring the light that dissolves into an architecturally organised space.

María Teresa López Flores