Catalogo: FLIX. "Kaleidoscope". Ranivilu Gallery

FLIX KALEIDOSCOPE

No Trespassing Sign | can spray over aluminum | 18 x 12 In | 45 x 30 cm | Miami, 2017

FLIX | RANIVILU ART GALLERY

Flix is an urban artist that incurs into the art world by intervening urban spaces. The interventions he creates trend toward Geometric Abstraction through diverse media such as painting and sculpture. By intervening the urban space, Flix intends to break the gray monotony of the city dweller and awaken emotions that sensitize the spectator. For him the urban space is the main stage in which people develop their own small stories.

His career as an architect allows him to address the criteria of urban space and enjoy better handling of proportion, scale and dimensions when intervening large-scale spaces. Moreover, the intimate contact with performing arts, such as photography, painting and music activities, allows him to refine and enhance his artistic ability.

ARTIST STATEMENT “My aesthetic proposal essentially takes the street as the epicenter for the deployment of a contemporary sensibility full of dense patterns, chromatic labyrinths, robots, stencils and geometries. Betting mainly to the activation of urban aesthetic: the playful, the temporal, sensitive surprise all woven as a strategy for constructing new ways to live and interpret the city. In this way, I try promote the transformation of the urban context and those who inhabit their scenarios: citizens. I am interested in generating interventions that deffy the psyche of the expectator, arousing emotions and anxieties that show the paradoxes and absurdities of everyday situations. "

FLIX

1976

Caracas, Venezuela

Solo exhibitions

• 2017 | Kaleidoscope | Ranivilu Art Gallery | Miami, USA • 2016 | Espacio Habitable 2 | Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia, Maczul | Venezuela • 2015 | Espacio Habitable | Galería Graficart | Venezuela • 2013 | Dinamismo Geométrico | La Casa 22 | Venezuela Group Exhibitions (Selection)

• 2017 | Art Wynwood Fair | Ranivilu Art Gallery | Miami, USA • 2016 | Enlaces Cromáticos | Asociacion Cultural Humboldt | Venezuela • 2015 | Proposiciones Abstractas | Galería D´Museo | Venezuela • 2014 | Caracas 2014 | Galería D´Museo | Venezuela • 2013 | Día de Los Muertos “Kalakara” | Galería Bodet | Mexico • 2012 | Los Nómadas | Organización Nelson Garrido| Venezuela • 2011 | Streetart Exibition 48 Stunden Neukölln | Berlín, Germany • 2010 | Living Walls Conference Street Art & Urbanism 2010 | Atlanta, USA • 2009 | Madrid Poster Art 2009 | Spain • 2008 | Poster & Sticker Koloni | Dresden, Germany • 2008 | CansFestival | London, England Awards • 2015 | 56th Venice Biennale. Exhibition TE DOY MI PALABRA. Venezuelan Pavilion. Venice, Italy • 2009 | Art competition Jóvenes con FIA 2009 XII Edition (first prize)| Caracas, Venezuela

Education • 2002 | Architect | Universidad Central de Venezuela | Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism

KALEIDOSCOPE | RANIVILU.COM

Stop Sign 1 | can spray over aluminum | 23.5x23.5 in | 60x60 cm | Miami, 2017 Stop Sign 2 | can spray over aluminum | 23.5x23.5 in | 60x60 cm | Miami, 2017 Stop Sign 3 | can spray over aluminum | 23.5x23.5 in | 60x60 cm | Miami, 2017

MIRROR IMAGES OF FLIX Flix is first and foremost an urban artist. His architectural background steers him to focus his creative work on the city. The artist uses his art to counteract the coldness of concrete and humanize the environment of the spectator. His work is transcending geographically by intervening walls of different cities around the world, but also by his ability to transform spaces - and objects - of different scales.

His nature as an urban artist does not detract from his plastic work exposed in an art gallery.

The street is present and manifested in the gathering of objects that he recycles and intervenes pictorially: from traffic signals to various objects found in the street to which he changes their appearance. The result is an innovative transformation through geometry and color. In these transformations, Flix lets you glimpse segments of the original state of the objects, accomplishing aesthetically harmonious pieces. Some of his pieces are playful and susceptible to be manipulated and transformed by the viewer. The reference to the urban is certainly always present in his work.

His geometry has implications that go beyond production and the formal treatment. It can be interpreted as affective geometries that result from his experience of seeing. As a result, the rhomboidal or circular compositions derive from the artist’s childhood memories of the salt crystals, in the saltpans of Venezuela. His geometry also derives from his fascination with the kaleidoscopes, whose images are constantly changing and have perfect symmetries.

That same perfection, compositional rigor and transformational capacity of the images is present in Flix’s works. Under this principle, he conciliates figurative motifs, - such as the allusion to totems -, with geometric abstraction. The result is lively images, supported by an impeccable symmetry that, once finished, incites in the viewer the pleasure to see.

Symmetry constitutes the structural axis of Flix's work. It is also the foundation of kaleidoscopic images. The principle that governs kaleidoscopes is the possibility of observing different views of the same subject by means of several mirrors angularly placed inside a tube. In all of those resulting images, symmetry is present. Flix's compositions seem to derive from a "mirroring" principle similar to that of the kaleidoscope, only pictorially treated on a plane or volume. The shapes suggest angles, and in some cases illusion of volume, both by its geometric configuration, and by the method of using color. The latter is applied in planes without nuances or accidents, and yet its tonal variations create these effects of apparent three-dimensionality. Colors are strongly saturated and are emblematic in his work: cyan, magenta and yellow predominate.

The relation with the kaleidoscope is visual: for its symmetry and capacity for transformation.

The latter occurs in certain works of Flix, when the viewer manipulates and modifies their appearance. Like the playful and participatory works in which some of its elements are susceptible to change of position thus modifying the color and certainly, the composition.

In this way, Flix contemplates the possibility that a work is one and several at the same time: the main foundation of the kaleidoscope’s images.

As an urban artist, Flix encourages the spectator to perceive in a harmonious way the visual stimuli that he has in his surroundings. At present, in this exposition, we are encouraged to become aware that seeing and perceiving can be unusual and infinite sensory experiences.

Susana Benko

Art researcher and independent curator.

Member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-Venezuela Chapter)

KALEIDOSCOPE | RANIVILU.COM

Caleidos 1 | Can spray on wood | 35 In | 90 cm | Miami 2016

FLIX | RANIVILU ART GALLERY

Caleidos 2 | Can spray on wood | 35 In | 90 cm | Miami 2016

KALEIDOSCOPE | RANIVILU.COM

FLIX | RANIVILU ART GALLERY

Cromatic Propulsion 1 | Can spray on wood | 59 x 16 in | 150 x 40 cm | Miami 2017

Cromatic Propulsion 3 | Can spray on wood | 59 x 16 in | 150 x 40 cm | Miami 2017

KALEIDOSCOPE | RANIVILU.COM

Cromatic Propulsion 1 | Can spray on wood | 59 x 16 in | 150 x 40 cm | Miami 2017

kaleidos Esmeralda | Can spray on canvas | 47 x 47 in | 120 x 120 cm | Miami 2017

FLIX | RANIVILU ART GALLERY

Crystal kaleidos | Can spray on canvas | 47 x 47 in | 120 x 120 cm | Miami 2017

KALEIDOSCOPE | RANIVILU.COM

Piramide Ondas | Can spray on MDF | 23.6 x 23.6 x 23.6 in | 60 x 60 x 60 cm | Miami 2017

FLIX | RANIVILU ART GALLERY

Piramide Yellow Blue | Can spray on MDF | 16 x 16 x 23.6 in | 40 x 40 x 60 cm | Miami 2017

KALEIDOSCOPE | RANIVILU.COM

Circulo Magnetico 3 | Magentic Spray Paint on wood | 18 in | 45 cm | Miami 2016 Circulo Magnetico 2 | Magentic Spray Paint on wood | 18 in | 45 cm | Miami 2016 Circulo Magnetico 1 | Magentic Spray Paint on wood | 18 in | 45 cm | Miami 2016

V Runner| Can spray on canvas | 79 x 39 In | 200 x 100 cm | Miami 2017

KALEIDOSCOPE | RANIVILU.COM

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