Gustavo Bonevardi: Water and Color on Paper

On view from April 2 through May 16, The Drawing Room in East Hampton is pleased to present "Gustavo Bonevardi | Water and Color on Paper". The exhibition features radiant new abstractions that range from a suite of four small watercolors to a large diptych measuring five feet wide. Trained as an architect, Bonevardi’s public sculpture, light commissions and earlier paintings embody precision, perfect gradients and aspects of minimalism. Within a fluid studio practice between two and three-dimensional work, the artist’s most recent works on paper embrace color in a series that explores buoyancy, chance and transformation. From effervescent to tranquil, the paintings on view capture moments of pure action in compositions that evoke botanical forms, aquatic ecosystems and atmospheric realms.

In this new body of work, Bonevardi employs a rigorous technique in which gouache and watercolor pigments are slowly released from above. Through a process that is controlled but not premeditated, the water-based pigments burst into speckled blossoms and spatters, condense into orbs, and spread into diffuse veils of color. Linear motifs are created through gentle turns of the paper in tandem with gravity, as the artist coaxes drops of color across the sheet surface in single strands. In some compositions these elements function like stems that support an array of petals, color bursts and halos. In others, the sinuous marks conjure rocket trails. Bonevardi is thoroughly engaged in his methodology, likening the process to a Haiku. Abstract forms materialize gradually through the artist’s precise yet intuitive gestures in which neither hand nor brush touch the paper.

 
See below for full press release and selected works.