Antonio Murado: Velvet Room

Antonio Murado's career is steeped in contemporary abstraction, yet his basic principles draw from the past. Characterized by their luminosity and color, Velvet Room, presents three large-scale works highly influenced by the techniques and visual elements from 17th century Baroque Spanish painting, and the era surrounding this time of power, imperialism, exploration, and conquest.

 

Murado's paintings are distinguished by their layered, impastoed surfaces and continued experimentation with the properties of paints and varnishes. He is a colorist of remarkable breadth, expressing both subtlety and bravura at the same moment. An artist fascinated with the alchemy of paint, his technique is derived from an intense investigation of the expressive possibilities of the paint itself, independent of the gesture. These experiments in alchemical materiality have infinitely nuanced results - making us believe in the capacity of paintings to reinvent sensation.

 

Born in 1964 in Galicia, Lugo, in Northwest Spain, Murado studied Fine Art at the University of Salamanca, Spain and received a B.F.A in 1988. After completing his studies, he lived in Madrid for several years before moving to New York in 1996, where he currently resides. Throughout his thirty-year-career, he has been recognized and honored with many of Spain's highest awards for painting. Murado's work is part of the permanent collections of Spain's leading museums, including the Museo de Bellas Artes and the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea in Santiago, and is included in important collections in the United States and Europe such as; Brookfield Arts, Phillip Morris, Ritz-Carlton, Pfizer Inc., AXA, American Express, Chase Manhattan Bank, Shaw Pittman, The Progressive Corporation, Wells Fargo Center, Winston & Strawn, and many others.

 

Murado's work has been reviewed by countless international publications and is also the subject of several monographs. A new monograph will be available in the spring of next year, following the path of the artist's work for the last twenty years.

 

Recent exhibitions include Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand (2017); Galeria Vilaseco, La Coruña, Spain (2017); Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, New Jersey (2017; Mana Contemporary, Chicago, Illinois (2016); Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles, California (2015); Center of Arts and Design, Lugo, Spain (2015); and "San Antonio Collects: Contemporary," San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX (2012).

 

Murado will be artist in residence this summer at Fundación Casa Wabi. Created in 2014, the foundation is located on the Oaxacan coast and was designed by the renowned architect Tadao Ando (Pritzker 1995). Artists in residence develop their work through interaction with other disciplines, with members of the community, and within the natural environment of the Pacific coast. CASAWABI.ORG

 

Holly Johnson Gallery is located at 1845 Levee Street; Suite #100; Dallas, Texas 75207. Gallery hours are 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. The gallery is a founding member of CADD - Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas. For information call 214-369-0169, or email info@hollyjohnsongallery.com, or visit www.hollyjohnsongallery.com.