Rafael Forteza

RAFAEL FORTEZA (Palma de Mallorca, 1955).
Untitled.
Oil and collage on oilcloth.
Signed on the lower right side.
Measurements: 160 x 107 cm; 164 x 110 cm (frame).

Significant work of Rafael Forteza, made in a fully consolidated language, in which the artist explores painting as a field of material experimentation, gesture and sign. The combined use of oil and collage on oilcloth underlines the author's interest in non-conventional supports, expanding the traditional limits of painting and reinforcing the processual character of the work.
The composition is articulated from a veiled and stratified surface, where graphic fragments, traces and material remains emerge and are hidden, generating a constant tension between presence and absence. This economy of means and this formal restraint are characteristic of Forteza's work in his mature stage, where chance, accident and conscious intervention coexist in a precise balance.

The work is part of the line of research that Forteza has developed since the late eighties and throughout the following decades, marked by the dialogue between the European informalist tradition, the conceptual heritage and a personal poetics of the sign. In this period, his work reaches a full formal and discursive coherence, recognized both by the market and by the institutions.

Rafael Forteza is one of the most relevant and consolidated figures of contemporary Spanish plastic art that emerged in the 1980s. Trained at the University of Barcelona, from the beginning he has developed his own language that articulates gesture, matter and sign, in dialogue with the European informalist tradition and the post-conceptual currents of the second half of the twentieth century.
His trajectory reaches an early international projection, with works incorporated to first level institutional collections, such as the MoMA in New York, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret, a key institution in the history of European modern art.
Since the late eighties he has maintained a continuous presence in the international art circuit, participating regularly in fairs such as ARCO, Art Basel and Art Cologne, and exhibiting in galleries and museums in Europe and the United States. In 2002, the Casal Solleric of Palma dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him, confirming the coherence and solidity of his career.
Awarded several national and international prizes, including the Miró Foundation Prize on several occasions, Rafael Forteza's work is now held in numerous public and private collections, making him a stable reference in Spanish contemporary art, with sustained recognition at both the institutional and market levels.
His early international projection is consolidated with the incorporation of his work to first level institutional collections such as the MoMA in New York, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, as well as with his continued presence in international fairs such as ARCO, Art Basel and Art Cologne. Awarded on several occasions, including by the Miró Foundation, Forteza maintains a solid and recognized trajectory at both the institutional and market levels.