Jerónimo Elespe: Tácitos y Sordos | CAC, Málaga
Tácitos y sordos marked Jerónimo Elespe's first solo exhibition in a museum. Presented at CAC Málaga, the exhibition brought together a selection of small-format paintings produced between 2009 and 2011.
Based between Madrid and New York, Jerónimo Elespe studied Fine Arts at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. His academic training in the United States, together with his years living in New York, has been instrumental in shaping a deeply personal painting practice informed by a broad constellation of artistic and literary references.
Although his work has frequently been associated with major currents in contemporary painting, Elespe's practice draws together influences of diverse origins that are not always immediately apparent. These range from the music of Daniel Johnston and the comics of Henritte Valium to the paintings of Chardin, Philip Guston and Joan Mitchell, as well as the work of Minimalist and Post-Minimalist artists such as Fred Sandback and Barry Le Va. Likewise, recurring literary references—including Edgar Allan Poe, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and J. D. Salinger—run throughout his work.
Developed predominantly at night, Elespe's paintings are built through the gradual accumulation of delicate brushstrokes in shades of violet, blue, grey and black. The extended period of execution—sometimes spanning several years—reflects a working method grounded in the patient layering of successive interventions. Through this sustained process, everyday experience is transformed into images of profound introspection and marked autobiographical intensity.
The exhibition featured thirty-five oil paintings on aluminium, ranging in size from 6 × 4 cm to 50 × 35 cm. Installed with an almost imperceptible presence on the wall, the works demand slow, attentive looking. Beneath their restrained appearance unfolds a complex network of references to the domestic sphere, memory and the artist's immediate surroundings. Paintings such as Los Afónicos (2011) evoke the home as a space suspended between refuge and confinement.
Alongside the domestic realm, the artist's studio constitutes the exhibition's second conceptual axis. Works such as Trastero (2009–2011) and Inward (2010–2011) explore the porous boundary between these two spaces, transforming the tension between home and workplace into a metaphor for the creative process itself.
While rooted in autobiographical experience, Elespe's work transforms members of his family and close social circle into figures inhabiting a parallel, fictional reality. This continual oscillation between reality and fiction is mirrored in the artist's ongoing investigation into the possibilities of painterly language. Works such as Los Sordos (2008–2011) and Chaih-Kah (2009–2011) reveal a cumulative process of annotation akin to an abstract diary, unfolding over the course of months and, at times, years.
The exhibition also included two short films produced in collaboration with the experimental filmmaker Chanatip Yodprachong. Like the paintings, Howng Phapwaat (2011) and Kang Kohk (2011) function as intimate records of the environment surrounding the artist's studio and home. While painting remains central to Elespe's practice, his engagement with experimental film and music plays an essential role in the development and articulation of his artistic thinking.
