Cruz Jimenez’s painting career spans over 25 years, and in this – his second solo show with Scott Lawrie Gallery – he continues to push the boundaries of his practice with large scale, powerfully emotive works.
The paintings in Candide offer a glimpse into the ethereal world of memory, meaning and place; interspersed with deeply personal memories of a childhood growing up in California, and also more recent meditations of the land and sea scapes in his adopted home here in Aotearoa.
At first glance, these paintings seduce us with their visual depth and shimmeringly nuanced colours; wrestling with our eyes through a continual search for symbols that might, somehow, offer us a navigation point for meaning. Yet time and again in these works, we are brought back to moments of self-awareness – we find ourselves searching, in other words, within ourselves.
What these paintings seem to represent then, is a struggle for internal order and peace out of geopolitical chaos and the global pandemic. And while these aren't lockdown works per se (Cruz has been focusing on these paintings in his studio for months) they do speak to isolation and self-discovery.
– Scott Lawrie, Director
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Address
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- Grey Lynn, Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland
Cruz Jimenez’s painting career spans over 25 years, and in this – his second solo show with Scott Lawrie Gallery – he continues to push the boundaries of his practice with large scale, powerfully emotive works.
The paintings in Candide offer a glimpse into the ethereal world of memory, meaning and place; interspersed with deeply personal memories of a childhood growing up in California, and also more recent meditations of the land and sea scapes in his adopted home here in Aotearoa.
At first glance, these paintings seduce us with their visual depth and shimmeringly nuanced colours; wrestling with our eyes through a continual search for symbols that might, somehow, offer us a navigation point for meaning. Yet time and again in these works, we are brought back to moments of self-awareness – we find ourselves searching, in other words, within ourselves.
What these paintings seem to represent then, is a struggle for internal order and peace out of geopolitical chaos and the global pandemic. And while these aren't lockdown works per se (Cruz has been focusing on these paintings in his studio for months) they do speak to isolation and self-discovery.
– Scott Lawrie, Director
