Rafael Canogar

RAFAEL CANOGAR (Toledo, 1935)
"Urban fossil", 1994.
Silkscreen on stone with nerine fossils, copy 57/75.
Signed, dated and numbered by hand.
Measurements: 60 x 45 cm; 81 x 65 cm (frame).

In "Urban Fossil", Rafael Canogar establishes a dialogue between geological memory and contemporary language. The work is made on stone with nerineas fossils, a support that introduces a very significant material and temporal dimension: in front of the immediacy of the pictorial gesture, the stone refers to a remote, sedimented and natural temporality.

The title, "Urban Fossil", is particularly eloquent: it alludes to the overlapping of times, between the ancestral and the modern, between natural matter and artistic intervention. The piece thus combines the memory of the earth with an urban and abstract sensibility, typical of Canogar's mature production.

Rafael Canogar, a founding member of the El Paso group in 1957, was a key figure in the renewal of post-war Spanish art. After his early informalist stages, his work evolved towards new forms of figuration, material experimentation and gestural abstraction. His production is represented in important collections and museums, including the Museo Reina Sofía, the IVAM, the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español de Cuenca and the Museo Patio Herreriano, among others.