Juan Gil Segovia

JUAN GIL SEGOVIA (Ávila, 1983).
"Venus of the table", 2015.
Mixed media, plaster in methacrylate showcase.
Signed on the side of the base.
Measurements: 45 x 14 x 14 x 14 cm; 50 x 23 x 23 x 23 cm (frame).
Sculptural torso that follows the model of the torso of Venus. However, on the whiteness of the figure bursts an intervention in the form of graffiti painted directly on the surface of the abdomen. This gesture introduces a visual and conceptual tension between the notion of classicism associated with perfection, harmony and timelessness and the contemporary sign of popular mass culture.
At the foot of the sculpture, resting on the base, is a miniature skateboard, another element of urban culture that accentuates the contrast with the canon.
Juan Gil Segovia graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Salamanca, later earning a doctorate in art history at the same university. He has been awarded several prizes: Certamen Jóvenes Creadores Primer Premio Pintura Ayuntamiento Salamanca 2012 and 2013; XLIII Concurso Internacional de Pintura homenaje a Rafael Zabaleta; 2012: II Premio Proyectos Jóvenes 967arte. Finalist; Special Mention Caja España Sculpture Award 2009... He has held solo exhibitions in Caja España-Caja Duero de León 2012, El Cuarto Simpático gallery in Madrid 2012; Espacio Menosuno in Madrid... being scheduled an important individual exhibition at the Centro de Arte Tomás y Valiente (CEART), Fuenlabrada (Madrid), for January 2005. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions: Wabi Sabi Gallery, Seville 2013; Nio2, Pereira 2012; Sala Unamuno, Salamanca 2013; Centro Cult. Marcos Valcárcel Ourense 2013... He participated in the edition ARCO 2012, Off Limits Madrid 2010.... He is represented in the collections of the Museum Rafael Zabaleta. Quesada (Jaén), Salamanca City Council, Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Fundación Caja de Ávila, Caja España-Caja Duero, Junta de Castilla y León, Museu de Arte Contemporánea da Bienal de Cerveira, among others. The rescue of cultural ruins is the leitmotiv of Gil Segovia's work. If in his retro-photographs he recovers analogical photographic procedures, in sampler he dialogues with the tradition of neo-Dadaist assemblage, in the Stihl he establishes a wink with the Russian movement of Van Doesburg and in Neo-geo he profanes the minimalist asepsis of the geometric abstraction of the eighties. Behind this web of appropriations are hidden others that reveal less explicit but significant affinities.