TRANSITIONS
Solo show at Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona, sept 2023
Transitions is a reflection of the constant duality between the creative process and the finished work. In essence, the work itself becomes a field of oscillation, and it is within this oscillation that it finds its meaning and purpose.
The colors, carefully interwoven , interact with white, gradually seeking juxtaposition. It is within this juxtaposition that we find the transition, which in this context can be understood as a change, a movement, a flow of energy, a recycling of the same. This transition is not limited solely to a formal change but transcends to a deeper level where the works resonate with each other, creating a visual symphony that evolves as we move through the space, crossing invisible lines of connection that keep the canvases in constant conversation.
This exhibition marks a transition from the initial chromatic verticality to a broader and more diverse palette; genuine and light. It is a testimony to how I try to evolved over time and a testament to this quest for new horizons.
This time, under a crucial motto: the work is the path to color. Color exists before the work takes shape and gradually reveals itself as we progress in the creative process. The work is built from the inside out, as an ever-developing process enriched with every brushstroke and every decision made in the studio.
I am not just talking about a mixture of colors and forms. It is a source of energy, a manifestation of the deep connection.
To rethinking,
oscillating between the process of the artwork
and the artwork itself.__
As a field of oscillation,
without oscillation, there is no artwork.
Its process and its culmination.
Like the reality that surrounds us,
ever-changing as well.
The intertwined colors
interact with white,
seeking juxtaposition,
the transition,
understood as a change,
understood as a movement.
Transition from chromatic verticality to the color
palette,
always expanding.
The artwork is not the color,
the artwork is a path to color.
Color exists before the artwork does,
the artwork will come with time
built from the inside out.
The artwork, as something more, is ENERGY.
Claudia Valsells
‘What ́s color?’ ( I ) Solo show december 2020 at ALZUETA GALLERY / BARCELONA.
Throughout the lockdown I was away from my studio and my art form – painting.
I found great comfort reading pieces by philosophers, historians, thinkers, writers, and other artists. They helped me better understand humanity and its role in this globalized world.
During the past months I have invited them to consider and answer the question: ‘What does color mean to you?’
First of all, to open up a dialogue, to grasp new ways of seeing colors, other perspectives, but also to better understand the world. I wanted to think of color in a broader context, outside of the artistic view, and to discover the notion of color as it is thought of by others.
Now, this whole journey has become a process of identifying and synthesizing knowledge, when possible, into color, with the wish to create and share a ‘Color Glossary’ where color meets perception. For what purpose?
Because To me, COLOR is a universal visual emotion, capable of reaching and inspiring every human being.
Claudia Valsells
Film below : Mariona Domenech
Graphic design: Maria Vicente
COLOR GLOSSARY where color meets perception
‘Thank you all for opening up a dialogue, for showing me new ways of seeing colors, other perspectives, but also for helping me better understand this world. I wanted to understand color in a broader context, outside of the artistic view, and to discover the notion of color as it is thought of by others like yourself. Now, this whole journey has become a process of identifying and synthesizing knowledge, when possible, into color, with the wish to create and share a ‘Color Glossary where color meets perception.’
Claudia Valsells, Barcelona.
MARINA GARCÉS FiLÒSOFA / PHILOSOPHER / AC011 POWDER RED
‘Diria que el color, per a mi, és el gust del tacte’
OLAFUR ELIASSON ARTIST /AC 002 YELLOW
‘Colour has an enormous psychological and associative potential: even though it has been cultivated to the extreme, the amount of individuality in experiencing colours is equally extreme. Colour does not exist in itself but only when looked at. The unique fact that colour only materialises when light bounces off a surface onto our retinas shows us that the analysis of colours is, in fact, about the ability to analyse ourselves.’
LI EDELKOORT TREND FORECASTER / AC 119 NATURAL OFF WHITE
‘Color approach to body and soul.The mystical aspect in colour; colour as an expression of a higher goal; colour as a form of profound concentration; colour as a new level of awareness.’
RUPI KAUR POET / AC 206 SOFT NUDE
‘Colour is laughter, and joy, and air. Colour is one of the most beautiful details of life.’
RAMÓN ANDRÉS, ENSAYISTA y PENSADOR / ESSAYIST and THINKER / AC 052 DARK GREEN
«El color es una forma de nostalgia, un modo de entender la noche, de desnudar su sombra para que las cosas sean cuando ella duerme. El color es una lluvia, un vaso, el alba, la hoja vuelta de un álamo, la rodera de un carro de heno, que amarillea. Es el relieve del mundo para que nosotros, a ciegas, tocándolo, descubramos desde nuestra oscuridad su rostro y nos reconozcamos en él».
VICTORIA CIRLOT CATEDRÀTICA DE FILOLOGiA ROMÀNICA / PROFESSOR OF ROMANIC PHILOLOGY / AC019 ROUGE
‘Entiendo el color como el aspecto espiritual de una representación. El color es un estado de ánimo, una emoción. El rojo burdeos expresa una pasión hecha de dolor y gozo. ‘
TORTELL POLTRONA PALLASSO / CLOWN /AC 009 RED
‘Els meus colors de maquillatge son el Blanc, el negre i el vermell, que es el que més m’agrada’
ANGELICA DASS FOTÒGRAFA / PHOTOGRAPHER -HUMANAE PROJECT /AC073 BEAUTIFUL SAND.
‘Nací en una familia llena de color ‘
JAUME FUNES, PSICÒLEG, EDUCADOR I PERIODISTA/ PSYCHOLOGIST, EDUCATOR AND JOURNALIST/ AC 048 GREEN BLUE
‘Per a mi el color es una manera de mirar i d’interpretar la realitat que m’envolta. Miro amb filtres de llums i colors. La llum i el color són maneres d’entendre i explicar el món.’
OSCAR TUSQUETS ARQUITECTE, PINTOR i ESCRIPTOR / ARCHITECT, PAINTER AND WRITER/ AC071 POMPEIAN RED
“En Arquitectura, la posibilidad de huir osadamente de la dictadura contemporánea del blanco ¡Viva Barragán!”.
DAVID BUENO I TORRENS BIÒLEG ESPECIALITZAT EN NEUROCIÈNCIA APLICADA A L’EDUCACIÓ / BIOLOGIST, EDUCATION AND NEUROSCIENCE/ AC 098 GREY GREEN
‘Com a científic haig de dir que el color és una ona electromagnètica de natura corpuscular que vibra en una determinada longitud d’ona. Ara bé, això és només una descripció que únicament grata la superfície. Per a mí el color és l’expressió vital de la natura, el reflex d’allò que ha estat i l’ombra del que vindrà.’
FLAVIA COMPANY ESCRIPTORA i PERIODISTA / WRITER and JOURNALIST/ AC062 OCHER GREEN
‘El color és el filtre amb què mirem la vida.’
Flavia Company m’escriu aquestes increíbles ratlles en referència a les meves obres:
‘La verticalitat del que comença i no acaba. Ens representa. Ens convoca. Ens pregunta -què podries construir amb mi?- però també ens contesta -tu ets dels colors del que construeixes-. La relació entre l’horitzontalitat dels diferents colors -diferents conceptes, individualitats, temps, espais, idees, illes, cases, mons, sentiments, tot i tant-, colors interromputs -la vida- en les seves formes trencades, recolzades sobre el blanc, que és tots els colors, que és cap ni un. Contrast i significació. Context.’
Flavia Company writes me these beautiful words in reference to my artworks :
‘The verticality of what begins and doesn’t end. It represents us. It convenes us. It asks us -what could construct with me?- but also it answers us -you are the colors that you build. The relation among the horizontality of the diferent colors-distinct concepts, individualities, time, rooms, ideas, islands, homes, worlds, feelings, everything and so much-, colors interrupted -the life- at its broken forms, placed on the white, that is all the colours, which is none and no one . Contrast and significance. Context.’
Thank you Flavia!
SIRI HUSTVEDT ESSAYIST, NOVELIST AND POET/ ESCRIPTORA i POETA/ AC074 DARK ORANGE
My neurological sensitivities have determined my life, I suffer from synaesthesia. I also have strong physical responses to colors—once while looking at a shade of turquoise in Iceland I had a revolting crawling sensation all over my body. Everyone responds to color, but my mirror-touch sensations probably exaggerate the response. It’s possible that this sensitivity increased my interest in looking at paintings. My earliest exposure to a painter was to Munch. The colors are subjective. Everyone has her or his own.
HENRY GIROUX WRITER AND CULTURAL CRITIC, FOUNDER OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY / ESCRIPTOR I CRÍTIC CULTURAL, FUNDADOR DE LA PEDAGOGIA CRÍTICA/ AC 008 WARM RED
«Color for me opens a world that allows hope to present itself as a landscape of passion, possibility, and joy. Color pushes against the darkness, literal and symbolic, and creates a world in which words appear limited. Color elevates and merges with a visual world in which love and hope merge. Red is my color, it connects the blood in my veins and heart to the passion of resistance and the narratives of courage that give the present a future. «
CAROLIN EMCKE, PHILOSOPHER, WRITER and JOURNALIST/ AC101
VALERIA LUISELLI WRITER and ESSAYIST /AC035
DAVID ATTENBORUGH NATURIST SCIENTIST / AC044
JUDY WAJCMANN SOCIOLOGIST / AC 023
ALESSANDRO BARICCO WRITER and JOURNALIST / AC 065
ARNO STERN RESEARCH EDUCATOR/ AC004
FINA BIRULÉS FILÒSOFA / PHILOSOPHER / AC022
STEFANO MANCUSO PLANT NEUROBIOLOGIST / AC055
DAVID LE BRETON ANTHROPOLOGIST, SOCIOLOGIST and PROFESSOR/ AC128
NOAH HARARI HISTORIAN and WRITER / AC 042
HIMALI SINGH SOIN ARTIST and WRITER / AC036
KRISTINE MCDIVITT TOMPKINS ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATIONIST AND ACTIVIST / AC 089 Sand Colour
CESAR BONA WRITER and PROFESSOR / AC 047 Deep Green
FRANCESCO TONUCCI, EDUCATOR AND CARTOONIST / AC 040
‘What ́s color?’ (II) for architects and designers
Solo show december 2021 at Espacio Pavilion / Plantea Estudio / MADRID.
Exhibition curators: Julia Ruiz-Cabello and Gonzalo de Benito.
«The memory of one of my architecture teachers taking off one of his reddish-brown English shoes, rolling up the tour of his pants to show the navy blue color of his socks, and cutting out a piece of clothing from the striped Oxford shirt. All this spectacle in the middle of a construction site to show respectively the color of the wood, the color of the carpet and the different shades of the walls, is an image that I remember with some nostalgia, but that cannot be repeated today.»
Text commissioned by the architect Cristian Cirici on the occasion of my my first color chart self edited in 2000.
«From the scientific experiment to the artistic concern, from Munsell’s diagrams and Goethe’s studies to Le Corbusier’s Salubra and the almost infinite possible combinations of electronics, the color chart has always existed to facilitate the communication of color. A mere organic, hierarchical and chromatic division in its origin, a method of plastic expression and aesthetic positioning in its development, this instrument, which came to democratize design and encourage the creative impulse, has seen in its years of life how the use of color by the architectural sector has been diminishing, limited perhaps because of certain social prejudices and canons encouraged by advertising and the market. The pristine white, the sad black, the nondescript gray, the garish red.
Monopolized the business of colors available by the painting companies, relegated the work of the colorist to the background due to ignorance or fear of architects and clients to make a mistake or be branded as eccentric; it is in this context that the artist Claudia Valsells had an idea: to create a specific chromatic selection for this sector.
In this exhibition we wanted to highlight the work of the colorist, the process of selecting and prescribing colors for a project and the color chart as a tool that facilitates and enables communication between architects and designers. For this reason we have compiled in the exhibition a series of work tools that Claudia, an artist linked to color since her beginnings as a mural painter, used for the elaboration of her own chart: notebooks, mixers, spatulas, annotations, paint covers. It is therefore a retrospective, documentary and personal exhibition, where experiences, stories and testimonies are mixed.
The result of more than twenty years of work by the artist, collaborating with architects and designers in the definition of colors, this color chart is composed of 142 colors applied with real paint, which allows to see the exact reproduction of the color as it will look once applied on the surface. This range of colors, developed for use in architecture, both exterior and interior, allows the colorist to demonstrate Valsells’ natural ability and chromatic instinct, the knowledge of the language that color implies.
This color chart, and the work of its author, Claudia Valsells, is an invitation to explore, to play, and to dare to prescribe colors. Any color from this palette can be achieved, and it is worth the effort to see exactly what one is looking for. We want to reopen the dialogue on the use of color in architecture, to offer one more tool, among many others, that encourages that return to color, with knowledge, dialogue and vision.»
In this second edition of ‘What’s color?’ exhibition, I asked to anyone connected to architecture or design ‘‘What’s color?’’.
They sent us their professional experience with color, in a photo or phrase or video and all the material was included in the show celebrated during 10.12 to 14.12.2021 at Espacio Pavilion / Plantea Estudio Madrid.
photos © Julia Ruiz-Cabello and Gonzalo de Benito
THANKS TO:
Plantea Estudi, Kal-a, Elii, HANGHAR, Nomos arquitectos, Montse Vicens (Int-sight), Isabel Francoy, Tomás López Design, Stefano Colli, Conti.Cert, Un parell d’arquitectes, Naso ++, Isla, Auxi Gálvez (PSAAP), Escobedo Soliz, Antoni Arola, Barbara Aurell, Laura Castanya, Andrea Batlló y Adrià Escolano, Marc Morro, Anna Vidal (Vis arquitectes), Gema Sach, Oscar Tusquets, Mariona Espinet, Isabel Sendra, AMOO, Loca Studio, Paula Arroyo, Cierto Estudio.
‘Color dialogues’. Solo show 12/2021 to 01/2022 at Alzueta Gallery Madrid, MADRID.
After my last solo exhibition a year ago at Alzueta Gallery Barcelona questioning the meaning of color and introducing my new line of work on canvas, this new exhibition continues the intense meditation I have over color.
Investigating its meaning and the different concepts that poets, thinkers, architects and interior designers have about the meaning of color, my paintings are juxtaposed dialogues on the concept and importance of color as a universal visual emotion, capable of reaching and inspiring every human being.
«The verticality of what starts and doesn’t end. It represents us. It calls us.
It raises a question -what can you build with me?- but, at the same time, also gives us the answer -you are the color that you choose to build yourself with-. The relation between the horizontality of different colors -different concepts, individualities, times, spaces, ideas, islands, houses, worlds, feelings-, uninterrupted colors -life- in its broken forms, supported by the white, that is all colors, and at the same time, none.
Contrast and meaning. Context.»© Flavia Company
