July Issue 2000
Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte, NC, Offers Exhibition by Argentina Artists
The Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte, NC, will host Works on Paper featuring artists Raul Diaz and Ernesto Berra on view July 21 through Aug. 19, 2000.
Ernesto Berra lives and works in Cordoba, Argentina, where he was born in 1947. Since he began exhibiting his works of art in 1969, Berra has been honored with over forty-five solo and group exhibitions, making him one of Argentina's most prominent artists.
A painter of collages that often resemble abstract landscapes, Berra's images have a clearly constructivist background. There is a gestural quality in the color strokes, but the insinuated horizontal and vertical lines support a vigorous structure. Color, form and the plane are values in themselves and can actually represent a reality in Berra's paintings.
In the first decades of this century, Cubists and Dadaists included everyday objects - tramway tickets, ropes, pieces of wood and fabrics - in their paintings. With this simple act, they produced a major conceptual turn in twentieth century art. Upholding this tradition, Berra incorporates extra-pictorial elements such as wires, sticks, nails and metallic pieces by fusing them into the surface of the painting, thereby making clear distinctions and directions.
Represented exclusively in the United States by Jerald Melberg Gallery, this is Berra's second solo exhibition with the gallery.
Raul Diaz was born in Cordoba, Argentina, in 1952, and continues to live in his native city. Although trained as an architect, in his heart Raul Diaz was always a painter. At the age of thirty-four, Diaz devoted himself full time to painting , and since 1984 has gained much respect and notoriety throughout the United States, Europe and South America having been exhibited in over fifty solo and group exhibitions including the Genaro Perez Museum in Cordoba and the Dubuque Museum of Art.
Self-taught as an artist, Diaz's technique reflects considerable sophistication in the heavily worked surfaces of his paintings on wood. These surfaces have been layered, scraped, overpainted, scuffed, collaged and incised with subtle markings. Despite hints of geometric division, Diaz's dream-like paintings create ethereal, textured environments that are both mysterious and compelling. The delicate movements of boats, leaves and figures within the landscape offer a surreal, yet serene and comfortable place that reflects the past and intimates the future.
This is the artist's second solo exhibition with the gallery.
Also showing at Jerald Melberg Gallery through July 8 is Wood + Work = Woodworking, and through Sept. 16 a Summer Group Exhibition, featuring new work by gallery artists. July 21 - Aug 19 will also feature the inaugural exhibition in the new Objects Gallery with works in glass, wood, clay and metal.
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