Opening reception: November 14, 2024
Location: 195 Chrystie Street, NYC 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 6 pm, Saturday 12-5 pm & Sunday by appointment
Contact: caroline@voltzclarke.com | 917.292.6921

Press Release

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Aurora, a solo exhibition, by Maru Quiñonero.

Maru Quiñonero is a Madrid-based artist whose work is informed by her encounters with synesthesia–– a perceptual phenomenon involving an involuntary blend of the senses. Her unique sensory experiences enrich her artistic expression, enabling her to translate perceptions into vibrant visual forms. While her work may appear simple at first glance, the canvases reveal a subtle intricacy of detail displayed in pencil strokes and layered paint.

This series of paintings bear witness to Quiñonero’s unwavering passion for exploring color. In Aurora, Quiñonero turns to a rich palette of blues, drawing inspiration from the brilliant skies she admires on daily walks with her dogs. Each canvas resonates with the hues of dawn and dusk, capturing the ephemeral beauty of the Madrid skyline. The series encourages viewers to engage with the subtle nuances of color and surface, prompting an immersive sensory experience.

The artist’s technique, characterized by velvety textures and layered brushwork, provokes an appreciation for the unique complexities embedded in each piece. Pencil strokes delimit the forms, echoing the familiarity of Quiñonero’s previous works while encouraging the audience to engage with the colors beneath each figure. Rather than seeking a singular meaning, Quiñonero embraces a simplification of her artistic language, emphasizing aesthetic value and the joy of creation. Her compositions often revisit familiar shapes, serving as a meditative exercise in persistence that draws the audience deeper into her evolving vision.

Beyond the aesthetic, Quiñonero’s exploration of blue serves as a poignant metaphor for the emotional landscape of her life. “Life is full of blues,” she notes, each shade conveying distinct feelings and memories. Her work also reflects her multifaceted journey of growth, Quiñonero communicates her belief that growth is a multifaceted process, resulting in works that are neither flawless nor homogenous. By revisiting familiar forms and incorporating titles inspired by personal narratives, each painting is infused with a sense of intimacy. Quiñonero expertly balances the pursuit of beauty with a sense of familiarity in both her artistic practice and her Spanish heritage.

Once again, Maru Quiñonero demonstrates her commitment to sensitive abstraction, achieving a dynamic interplay of colors and forms that resonate with her truth and artistic vision.

Born in 1979 in Murcia, Quiñonero holds a degree in Art History from Murcia University and a Master’s from Carlos III University in Madrid. Since 2003, she has exhibited extensively, and Aurora represents her fourth solo presentation with Voltz Clarke Gallery.

Selected Works

On View: May 12, 2022 – July 2022
Location: Voltz Clarke Gallery, 195 Chrystie Street, New York, NY, 10002
Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am–6 pm,  Saturday 11-5 pm & by appointment
Contact Info: juliette@voltzclarke.com, 917.292.6921, voltzclarke.com 

Press Release

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present The Need, a comprehensive solo show featuring new works by artist Maru Quiñonero.

Maru Quioñero’s passion for volume, shape, texture, color and material has driven her to define compositions that visualize her own creative universe. Her Color and Vacuum series has been in development since 2017, serving to facilitate a conversation between color and emptiness. Through these extensive monochromatic studies, Quiñonero explores form beyond plastic expression, tapping into a process of possibility that continually draws from her lived experiences. The Need is the latest iteration of this venture, consisting of a capsule collection of works revolving around red and pink hues.

The need of colour.

Caitlin Moran writes on the fifty-one page of her book ‘How to be famous’ the following quote by Carson McCullers: “The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear”.

I wrote it down on October fourteenth, 2020 in order to not forget it. I would probably read it the night before. I am sure that I underlined it and folded the top corner of the page so as to find it easily at any time. Since then, it has been
there. Spinning in my head for almost a year. Moran uses the quote when talking about the relationship that her main young
character has with a platonic love. It is all a matter of feelings. Art helps me to go through my emotions, in an eternal search that I still do not understand. But that is what it is all about. So I want to talk about this unbearable need.

When colour becomes a necessity.

On August eighth, just a few months ago, I wrote: “I need to do something very red and very pink”. And there was the note. On my iPhone notes. Small matter. It was just more a reminder of the colour scheme than anything else. Ten words
without intention. Ten.

A digital colour note that I would need later at my studio. I am always writing down sentences, ideas, concepts, words. I put them together with some concern because lately my thoughts are easily derailed. So much information, so many channels, so many interlocutors and messages create a mental mess and sometimes I am not able to go back to a
simple sentence. “It is really curious to note how fragile the memory is”.

Letter from Marcel Duchamp to Marcel Jean, March 15, 1952, New York. That is why, a few days later, when I wrote down another small thought, I stopped at that sentence. But I did not see the colours, I just saw the need. Why did I use that verb? Where does this state of need come from? Since then, I have not been able to stop thinking about this aphorism of mine. Almost a
judgement, “I need to do something very red and very pink”. A sudden and compelling urge for colour.

I am not here to discover anything new by affirming that artists have always looked outwards to paint, to reflect their reality, their society, their time. And they have not stopped since. All persons, whether artists or not, are beings who absorb what surrounds them.

Whether we like it or not, we are permeable to everything that coexists with our reality.

The intention of revealing the inside from the outside is the recurring idea that haunts me.

I often think about the idea that everything changed with modern and contemporary art. When artists looked inwards to express their surroundings. Until then imitating reality was the norm and, in a way or another, that was what art used to pursue.

But there comes the moderns and the avant-garde and the contemporaries, and they begin to express existence in response to their own reality. They articulate their own language and with their personal codes they are able to interpret
what they see and what they feel. Their individualism defines them. Is it the moment when the artist became a narcissist?

I think it is important to invite people to look at the abstract work without prejudice and simply for pure enjoyment. This is how it should be. Without so much analysis. And it is essential to educate the gaze to achieve it. It would be necessary to appreciate the details of each era, the fragments and the distinctive features of each society and recognize the different modes of expression of the history of humanity. But apart from all this cultural baggage that helps us to contextualize, each reading will inevitably be conditioned by the intonation of the person looking at the artwork. Does the one who watches then become the focus? More than the work, more than the artist? I am a full time artist. And as I am very self-demanding, I believe that I must use all the resources available to understand why I am doing or not something. It is the only way to grow.

I do not like to improvise at work. I cannot leave something so serious to the unexpected. But I care for spontaneity and freshness. The naturalness. I do not want a vice in the line, nor going just to the familiar. I try to execute something that I have previously seen in my mind, but I do not necessarily have to go through the sketch. Not that. Sometimes I hate it. But there are endless days in
the studio that I cannot find any other way. And I bend. It is hard to lose this battle because I have a lot of confidence in my intellectual work, the idea is already inside me but sometimes it is my hand that does not know how to execute it.

Those days of brain-hand disconnection are few and as I like to see the bright side of everything, I try to learn from that break that I indulge myself. This sentence from Bachelard now comes to my mind: “One can study only what one has first dreamed about” The psychoanalysis of fire. But what is the purpose of creating? What for? For whom?

There is no answer or other solution than honesty. I just pretend to be honest. With myself. Looking for honesty to find order. And I find honesty in the blunt forms of colour that I can imagine and build up in my head. I perceive them loaded with meaning and morality. I let myself be carried away by thought and reflection, getting lost in the aesthetic reasoning. Making the words pictorial. And then everything fits. It is not so much about thinking, but about feeling.

But do we think with ideas or words? Thinking about thinking, I have to inquire about metacognition. I recently heard Juan José Millás assure that “the word is the organ of sight”. And then I thought, we see the ideas. And then we put words to them. And following this, in my case, I put colour on them. I cannot stop wondering if Robert Mapplethorpe was referring to this when, worried by a mental block, in total lack of inspiration, he told Patti Smith at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, “The old imagery doesn’t work for me”.

Selected Works

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present Jacinto Moros, Maru Quiñonero, & Jason Trotter at Intersect Palm Springs opening Thursday, February 10th.

Location: Palm Springs Convention Center | 277 N Avenida Cabelleros Palm Springs CA 92262
Opening Night Preview (VIP/All Access Pass required): Thursday, February 10, 2022 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Fair Dates: 
– Friday, February 11, 2022 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
– Saturday, February 12, 2022 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
– Sunday, February 13, 2022 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
– VIP Brunch Sunday, February 13, 2022 10:00 am – 11:00 am

Jacinto Moros, Maru Quinonero, and Jason Trotter eachshare a strong interest in playful shapes, dynamic form, and vivid color. Distinguished by their unique backgrounds, specialized training, and distinct use of material, these works interact effortlessly to showcase high energy and expressive emotion. Moros’ wooden structures dance alongside the delicate hand of Quiñonero’s pastels and Trotter’s razor sharp compositions.

Intersect Palm Springs is a boutique fair that brings together a dynamic mix of modern and contemporary art, and is activated by timely and original programming. The fair has traditionally occurred in conjunction with Modernism Week at the Palm Springs Convention Center, and presents post-war and contemporary art. Formerly known as Art Palm Springs, it has been running since 2012.

Jacinto Moros was born in 1959 in Cetina, Zaragoza, Spain and is best known for his innovative use of the sculpture medium. By creating friction between his chosen material and their resulting forms, Moros develops a rhythmic weightlessness in space, as seen through his wood work and embossed monochromatic reliefs. The artist has been exhibited internationally, including the New Museum in New York City, the Sculpture Center, and the Smithsonian Institute, among others. Moros is also found in many private collections worldwide. He currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain.

Maru Quiñonero’s passion for volumes, shapes, textures, colors, and different materials inspire her to define compositions that visualize her own creative universe. Her Color and Vacuum series has been in the development stage since 2017 and focuses on creating a conversation between color and emptiness with a recent extensive study of colors– blue in particular. Quiñonero is a self taught artist who breaks conventional boundaries through her own capacity to imagine and express what she feels inside. She is based in Madrid, Spain. 

Jason Trotter is an American artist known for his bold geometric abstracts rendered in acrylics. The Los Angeles based painter explores contrast and balance using a hard-edge technique that produces sharp lines with abrupt transitions between color fields. His process requires him to work on a flat surface to tape off shapes, and then build up multiple layers of paint with a brush before applying the final coat with a palette knife for ample texture. He focuses on triptychs that are assembled and framed as one piece. This multi-panel approach allows for a more dynamic effect than the traditional compilation.While Trotter’s colors are chosen intuitively, his compositions are inspired by lines and forms observed in daily life with the intention of evoking an instinctual, physical reaction from observers rather than interpretive analysis.

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 5th from 6–8 pm
Gallery Location: 141 East 62nd Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10065
Hours:  Monday – Friday, 10 am–6 pm, Saturday by appointment
Contact Info: info@voltzclarke.com

Voltz Clarke Gallery is pleased to present WHAT IF?, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with Madrid based artist Mari Quiñonero. The exhibition will be on view from March 5th through April 17th, 2020, with an opening reception on Thursday, March 5th, from 6-8pm.

Quiñonero’s recent, abstract paintings make up a body of work she developed for her inauguaral exhibition at Voltz Clarke, WHAT IF?. The title comes from Quiñonero exploring the feeling of leaving her comfort zone and overcoming limitations to find growth. While working for the show, she struggled to find the perfect combinations of color, canvas and composition, so she resorted to asking herself – what if? – What if I try this color? What if I use this kind of canvas? What if I make this composition?

This body of work consists a series of greens, blues, warm nudes, berries and ochres. Quiñonero works with color palettes that help her research how she visualizes emotions. Each color is attributed to a particular feeling or mood such as strength, madness, vulnerability, passion, struggle, pathos, greatness or wealth. The fullness of the meaning behind the colors layered with the emptiness of the background create a conversation between the contrasting elements. The soft, dry texture of the canvas is a clean and vast support that welcomes the shapes and colors that come from the artist’s mind. Through her investigation of palette and the emotion it pairs with, Quiñonero has come up with her most personal work so far.

Quiñonero received her Art History Degree from Murcia University and earned her Masters in Fashion Communication from Carlos III University. She has had multiple solo exhibitions in Madrid, international group show participation and a range of art fair experience from London to Taiwan. Mari Quiñonero currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain.