The artist presents a new body of work, exploring the senses and their relation to memory. Carbonell moved from Valencia to Eindhoven in 2004, and his memories of Spain’s natural environment have shaped this new collection. It was only on leaving his ‘own context’, as Carbonell puts it, that he discovered how central it was to his identity. Freed by his newfound otherness, he began creating works directly referencing the landscape of his previous home.
The exhibition includes new light sculptures shaped as sinuous trees, as well as tables and cabinets textured like the sun-baked Mediterranean earth. Each piece feels adapted to a harsh climate, conveyed through the artist’s experimentations with industrial and often recycled materials. Carbonell’s work puts the viewer in contact with the elements of nature, and each tactile artwork demands to be closely explored.
Nacho Carbonell’s art is experiential. The artist is fascinated by the power of plants to colonise their environment, however inhospitable, and the tree-like sculptures commune with each other as if part of one larger organism. To be surrounded by these large scale works is to be transported to a hybrid environment.
Contextually, the artist appreciates similarities between Valencia and Los Angeles will complement the curation of the exhibition. In the manner of an ethnographer, Carbonell considers how environmental factors shape life, and translates this methodology into the aesthetic of his artworks. Metal and ceramic tables, with fishing nets fixed in stone table tops, reflect life in a coastal city; light sculptures with rough concrete bases seem to have grown organically from their immediate surroundings. Evolving within a parallel climate, the artist links life in the Mediterranean to the Pacific coast.
Ultimately, Carbonell’s artistic vision is an emotional reaction to his own past, explored through experimental forms and materials. Shaped through environmental conditioning, adapted to survive, each artwork becomes a self-portrait of Carbonell himself. The new collection demonstrates his continual development as an artist, defined by the lasting impression of his own roots.
