zo 14 mei - zo 18 jun

14:00 - 18:00, Vroom & Varossieau Gallery

Machangos, a Solo by Jordi Alós

“Machangos” a Solo by Jordi Alós

Opening: 14 May 2pm – 6pm

Exhibition dates: 14 May – 18 June 2023

RSVP: gallery@vroomandvarossieau.com

 

About the exhibition

Vroom & Varossieau is pleased to present Machangos, showcasing new works by Mexican artist Jordi Alós marking the artist’s first solo show in Europe. The exhibition features large-sized paintings depicting habits, daily life scenes and street performers in a playful, humorous and visually brilliant composition; and a new series of colorful and vibrant Machangos portraits.

The word Machangos has been strongly used in the Canary Islands to define, in a funny although disqualifying tone, someone as an eccentric person or a clown. Hence Jordi adopted this peculiar word. They came to life in 2015, he picked up this series recently again and since then Machangos are gaining even more strength. The artist often combines their features with real-life subjects, creating a unique world of his own that is a paradox: at once cheerful and irritating, simultaneously familiar and strange.

Shaped by a vigorous and energetic gesture, Alòs’ colorful and naive characters maintain an element of likeable ambiguity, encouraging viewers to question whether or not to trust their enigmatic and sly smiles. About his practice, the artist has recently stated: “l am strongly interested in revealing different layers of the same personality, often inaudibly. Through my work, I try to make this condition visible, with the aim of rethinking contemporary coexistence”.

With references to both art brut and realism, Alós’ work focuses on the human being, his nature and social life. In this exhibition the artist invites us to a colorful and multilayered world in which he explores the connection between humans and the environment, daily-life scenarios, a mixture of fiction and reality, in a way in which he wants to question and rethink our relationship with the other and our surroundings.

 

About the artist

Jordi Alós (1993, Mexico City) lives and works in Mexico City.
He has exhibited his work as part of group shows in London, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Mexico City. The solo exhibition Machangos with Vroom & Varossieau gallery marks the debut show of Jordi Alós in Europe.
Alós studied advertising and design at the Institute of Marketing and Advertising in Mexico City, where he discovered that the limits of “what can be” and “has to be” gave space for human expression. His work is influenced from both realism and art brut. Alós himself refers to his practice as art brut, a term used to catalog the works that go beyond the epistemological plat-form of modernity.He gasses the bubble of reality with gestural brushstrokes, using acid colors to depict his cartoonish personas with big eyes.
Drawing inspiration from his own surroundings, movies, music and his personal life, Alós investigates the contemporary society with its symbols, conflicts and tragicomic habits. Works of Jordi are in private collections in Dubai, Holland, USA, UK, Mexico, Spain and Switzerland.

 

About the gallery

Established in 2008 by Isabelle Vroom and Olivier Varossieau, Vroom & Varossieau is an international art gallery that specializes in contemporary art, old-school graffiti and emerging art. Vroom & Varossieau quickly gained recognition in the art scene with their collection of secondary market works as well as their representation of artists.

At the conception, the focus of Vroom & Varossieau was on street art, with names such as Banksy and Futura dominating the collection at the gallery. Throughout the years this focus has shifted towards contemporary art and emerging artists, with street art and urban art still at the base of their vision. Vroom & Varossieau works together with a wide variety of established artists, as well as talented artists that have yet to create a name within the art world.

Their collection spans from the street art veterans (eg Richard Hambleton, Futura, Banksy, Blade, Kenny Scharf) to the young talents of today. This varied portfolio shows the open mindset of the gallery: you do not have to be perceived as a great artist to be a great artist. Vroom & Varossieau always has its eyes on the future and receives the fresh minds of emerging talent with open arms. This allows the gallery to lead the curve and act as trendsetters within the ever-changing art world, rather than waiting until it is accepted by the mainstream. Vroom & Varossieau has also established quite a name within the art scene as refined art commissioners, with a fine portfolio of murals and restaurant interiors under their name.This is where creative placemaking comes to the surface, a process that allows for a more direct and expressive relationship between the audience (or client) and the artist. This process reflects perfectly in Vroom & Varossieau’s principles. Vroom & Varossieau helps in public art projects that link the community to different features of art-making processes, while it also aims to create a sense of property and pride over public spaces which the community itself can share with the artists.

Another service that Vroom & Varossieau provides is advising private collectors in buying and selling works of art (private sales). After being active in the art world for several decades, Vroom & Varossieau has gained an exquisite understanding of the value of artworks and how to acquire certain pieces of art. Therefore, Vroom & Varossieau is more than glad to help in this process and share their experience and knowledge with the world. The gallery is situated in Zaandam, The Netherlands, but its scope reaches far beyond that. Vroom & Varossieau is present at global art fairs such as Art Miami, Urban Art Fair Paris, The Moniker Art Fair London, Art Rotterdam, Art Antwerp and various other world-renowned fairs. Their international scope allows Vroom &

 

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