19 June – 5 October
First Floor
Iván Tovar (Dominican painter born in 1942 in San Francisco de Macorís, Dominican Republic) arrived in Paris in 1963, where his friendship with Agustín Cárdenas and his example would be of great value. Around 1968, he found his way by means of painting that is both highly sensual and extremely aggressive, helped by a precise and cold style that exalts the passionate content. The fabulous combats that take place in his work intentionally borrow, from the animal repertoire, their horns, their ovipositors, their tentacles and their scales. But these combats generally take place in the closed world of the carefully protected chambers of the shining sun.
With Tovar it becomes clear that the profound concerns are of a voluptuous nature, although they are asserted at the cost of a complete set of metaphors, reflecting gallantry and other qualities, that constitute the modern equivalent of those sumptuous monuments to beauty that are, for example, Góngora’s poems. In his latest works, the Dominican painter has developed the oratory aspect of his painting even more, in such a way that the elements are laid out like the words addressed to a women that the artist wants to flatter, to perturb, to seduce and, finally, to possess.Settled in Santo Domingo since 1979, Iván Tovar continues there with the highly colourful chronicle of his luxurious Quest for the Holy Grail.
José Pierre
(Paris, 1986)
(Translated from French by Guillermo Piña-Contreras)
