The perfect summer show, “A Moment,” presents new canvases featuring sunflowers, mosquitoes, irises and squids by the talented Spanish painter Santi Moix. Mixing abstraction, figuration and narrative in equal measure, the exhibition fits the gallery’s third—and most intimate—location like a glove.
Mosquit II amusingly portrays a gigantic mosquito hovering against a yellow backdrop. Gira Sol depicts a jumbo sunflower on an orange ground, showing traces of another, painted-over compostion. Neither image is realistic in any way: The mosquito flaunts bead-like shapes on its body, while the center of the sunflower is made up of hundreds of tiny, amoeba-like brushmarks.
Deep into the Sea, meanwhile, presents a squid morphing into a sunflower, which comingles with other flora on a vivid field of cerulean blue. The latter could be read as either water or sky—an ambiguity that sums up the artist’s cagey, quirky approach to subjects he clearly loves.—Paul Laster