ÓSCAR ABRAHAM PABÓN: THOUGHT AND MATTER, AT FERNANDO PRADILLA
By Álvaro de Benito
The Fernando Pradilla Gallery is exhibiting Palabra y Obra at its Madrid venue, a new solo show by Óscar Abraham Pabón (San Juan de Colón, Venezuela, 1984) in which, once again, a psychological investigation or anecdotal narrative is transformed into matter—though without restricting the possibility of the reverse path. The exhibition features recent works by the artist, pieces that maintain a certain relationship between the material and the everyday as something tangible through which to address symbolic notions of a philosophical nature.
Given his training as an architect, it is interesting to highlight his relationship with space and design, as well as his ambition to break traditional boundaries between architecture, sculpture, and volume. In this observation of the possibilities of each element lies part of its later instrumentality, as the compositions become tools for new meanings once they distance themselves from the original sense of the materials employed.
Delving into geometric abstraction, we encounter that dimensional space—whether through the spectator’s own inertia to pursue the variations offered by the physics of each element, or by observing the work as an aesthetic object in itself. Carpets, construction bricks, or methacrylate—each in its own form and conception—construct that dynamic between the corporeal and the visual and, as the title of the exhibition suggests, between word and work, the intangible as the backbone of the tangible.
Yet what stands out most in the exhibition is the reception of the viewer by the conglomerate formed by his impossible furniture. His concept-driven chairs are not novel in themselves, but each configuration and new deployment grants a new function. Just like the poetic quality of his wall-mounted works, this ensemble of furniture designs that surpass utility in favor of deeper reflection supports the central thesis of the exhibition: instrumentality or matter that activates reflective reasoning.
Óscar Abraham Pabón. Palabra y Obra can be seen until November 29 at the Fernando Pradilla Gallery, Claudio Coello 20, Madrid (Spain).
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