Forum Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by the internationally-known Spanish painter, Guillermo Muñoz Vera, opening April 12 through May 25, 2018. The exhibition, Analogies & Dichotomies / Analogías & Dicotomías, embodies the subject of Muñoz Vera’s current body of work: the contrast of light and shadow, the relationship of time and space, the similarity of past and present, and the impact of globalism on the world. The twelve oil paintings on view depict nature, architecture, technology, commerce and man, each work provoking the viewer to explore the similarities and differences that the Artist perceives.

The striking views of the city, the ocean, and life itself are infused with the Artist’s powerful and atmospheric use of light. The cover painting, The Fallen Angel (El Ángel Caido), 2017, illuminates a nineteenth-century bronze sculpture against the dramatic contemporary night skyline of Madrid, bringing the contrast between old and new in the composition of our cities into focus. But just as important, the figure in the sculpture is the “fallen angel” of the title, and falling, to the Artist, implies “disgrace, an unexpected shift from light to darkness.” By casting light on the sculpture, Muñoz Vera reverses the shift, giving the sculpture life and a substantial measure of grace.

In Climate Change (Cambio Climatíco), 2017, a fisherman calmly waits for his catch near the shadow of a palm tree as an enormous iceberg drifts by, unaware of its powerful, intimidating presence. And in Ophelia of the Ganges (Ofelia del Ganges), 2010, Muñoz Vera places an innocent child in the midst of a fully realized, polluted stream.

Throughout this exhibition, the Artist’s fourth with Forum Gallery, Guillermo Muñoz Vera uses his luminous surfaces, harmonious color and old-master technique to illuminate his contemporary ideas about modernity. Although the locales of the paintings are defined, the breadth of perceptive thought makes them infinite and universal. Similarly, the concept, Analogies & Dichotomies, can be applied to each painting on view, but is understood best when the entire exhibition is considered as a whole. In his catalogue foreword, the Artist states, “Analogies and Dichotomies suggests a unifying reflection which speaks of universalities without ignoring the peculiarities: it transforms the clash of frontiers into geographical vicinity, not a confrontation of insoluble opposites.”