Spanierman Modern is pleased to announce the opening on February 7, 2008, of Teo González, an exhibition and sale of new paintings by a talented artist who carries on the Minimalist tradition in American art––but in his own unique way.

Described by one art historian as “deceptively simple,” González’s paintings consist of rows, or loose grids, of small, meticulously rendered drops.  Born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1964, the artist found the impetus for these paintings in 1991, while living in his native city.  He initially studied in applied art schools in Zaragoza, where modern art began and ended with the expressive paintings of Dali, Miró and Picasso.  However, a turning point in his aesthetic development occurred when he came across an article in the Spanish magazine, Lápiz, that was celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of conceptual and color field painting. González was drawn to the fact that the mostly American artists included in it had developed processes that kept them from being emotionally involved in their work, an approach he found highly appealing.

González went on to experiment with similar formats, creating works of art by dropping ink on paper.  In 1995 he came to the United States, enrolling in the undergraduate visual arts program at California State University in Bakersfield, where he received a bachelor’s degree two years later.  He continued to work with ink, but eventually began creating drop paintings with acrylic and oil.  His method––much like the music of Philip Glass––is essentially a single theme that changes with small variations as it is repeated, becoming part of an overarching pattern.  González’s distinctive style results from the accumulation of numerous elements: his thousands of drops and the patterns they make have many antecedents in nature, ranging from eggs and molecules to stars, cells, seeds and reptile skins.  The possibility for the interpretations of his imagery is infinite––which is what makes his paintings so decidedly mesmerizing.  At the same time, the droplets of liquid that inhabit his paintings seem to have minds of their own: they hit the surface in such different ways that like snowflakes, no two are alike.  As the artist increases the size of his drops, they begin to look like an army of little beings––akin to muted cartoon-like characters, each expressing a different personality.  These forms imbue the paintings with a sense of humor and an overall liveliness that is lacking in the work of his more sober, cerebral compatriots in Minimalism.

González, who currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, has exhibited widely in both the United States and Europe.  Most recently, examples of his work were included in the exhibitions Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Collection, held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (2006) and Minimal Art Now, held at the Elvehjem Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2005).  González is represented in many important public collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Museo Pablo Serrano, Zaragoza, Spain.