Pelenur's Processes

(Uruguayan, Born 1977 in Buenos Aires) Martin Pelenur is a materials and process-based printer who uses resins, industrial paints, tapes and other objects to create compelling abstract works. His painting relies heavily on chemical reactions between these materials. The act of application and subsequent reaction create intricate patterns to form the basic content of the works.

As methodical as the artist is, it is the randomness and excitement of unknown results that give Pelenur's work special appeal. Working primarily in old abandoned floors of Montevideo's old city, Pelenur can work large while experimenting on numerous processes simultaneously. In short, Pelenur's works appear to be calculated surprise.

Recent series by Pelenur involve the application of various forms of tape and unique papers into stunning 3 dimensional grids or patterns laid on a 2D surface, usually in structured squares or rectangular forms in blacks, whites, rich blues and the earthy warm southern palette. (Scroll down to see video of Martin Pelenur at work.)

Statement

Says the artist,

"A small thought about my work:

Something I like to say is that I put “painting to paint”, I generate the conditions for this event to happen. I work with variables such as time, quantity and the horizontal plane. Fixing some of these variables I start to research chemical processes when painting. In extreme I set painting to work (a painter who doesn’t paint) and devote myself to generate the conditions for this to happen. By means of this chemical process, like I said, I set painting to work. This event happens in one unique moment in which the gesture appears, arises to the surface,takes place and occurs.I try to leave no mark in my work, no brushstroke, no “painter’s hand” just the paint gesture.

My goal when painting is to produce a presence and to give birth to the pictorial fact. I live this process through what Deleuze calls “diagram concept”, in which basically the painting comes past through this ?lter diagram, erases all data reference and creates its own event / fact. The act of painting, the pictorial fact, emerges when the form is put in relation to forces, forces that aren’t visible. Painting forces is, in fact, the event… and that’s where I am now.

I see Painting as way of thinking. Probably I am immersed in the technical problems of painting. Those are the ones that interest me. The more time I work in my studio the better painter I’ll be. Recently I started to get attracted with the grid and its basic unit: the square. From there, the series I am creating now.

Artist Martin Pelenur at work in one of his studios in Ciuda Vieja, Uruguay

Previous Shows