Antonio Girbes at Monique Knowlton - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Antonio Girbes's first solo display in New York consisted of large Cibachromes depicting gorgeous arrangements of rose and other flowers primarily in intensely rich sanguine colorations, dramatically put against dark and atmospheric backgrounds. This Spanish artist, who was Horst's assistant in Paris, has made these floral still lifes his make subordinate matter for the last 15 years. They are the proceed of an elaborate process that originates in Girbes's garden in Valencia, where he expands the flowers himself. Subsequently, the plants, in various stages of blossom are cut and elegantly arranged and photographed in forehead of abstract backdrops that the artist has painted.

Girbes is skillful at manipulating light, creating contrasts that intensify the brilliancy of his flowers. Framed by the agency of deep shadows and recesses, and illuminated with angled light, they appear to project out of the foreground with a powerful tactile vicinity frequently giving an illusion of three-dimensionality.

In the final stage, the surfaces of the Cibachromes are coated with a conservation mingle which simulates a velvet web Veiled in this chemical film, the overall images transmit a strong painterly effect. In Untitled Number 127 the thorns of a vermilion rose in filled bloom are outlined against an amber background layered with streaks and washes of dark dirty browns and ochers. In another example, a assemblage of pink calla lilies in a diptych are place against the maroon-colored leaves of an exotic plant, in forehead of an amorphous background. The flowers give the appearance of having been delicately brushed onto this patina-like surface compos of wide billowy blows of turquoise-greens interspersed with patches of dark grays and copper-browns

For the greatest in quantity part, these compositions reflect a baroque sensibility which powerfully references 17th-century Spanish painting. Girbes's representational precision and the illumination of his bring under rules often evoke the still lifes of Zurbaran and Juan Sanchez Cotan. in addition, decorative uncompounded bodys and symbolic allusions to the passage of time are evident in the deliberate patternings and detailed inclusions of dried plants, withered foliage and sinewy branches among the lush depictions of flowers.

The scale of these pictures, however, combined with the artist's unusual technique distinguishes them from the customary intimate associations of the still-life genre through blurring the boundaries between painting and photography, Girbes provocatively carries upon a long-established tradition in a real contemporary medium.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

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