Patrick Glascher | Seafaring

Praxis is pleased to present Seafaring, a solo exhibition by the artist Patrick Glascher (b.1975 Buenos Aires, Argentina). 

The show will be open from Thursday, November 9th, 2023 to Saturday, January 6th, 2024. 

The opening reception will be on Thursday, November 9th, from 5 to 8 pm. 

We are open Tuesday to Saturday, 9 am to 6 pm, at 501 W 20th Street, New York, NY, 10011.

Drawing is a reflective art form,and in figurative drawing, formal elements of visual language come into play. These elements affect not only  the representation of an image but also a complex interplay of ideas, sensations and emotions. The art of creating an image, as seen in this series depicting the sea, involves a fusion of intellectual, technical and emotional exercises. It brings together knowledge derived from patterns of references, as well as emotions and personal experiences. An artwork transcends its physicality even beyond the confines of an artist’s studio, , as it continues to evolve, , taking  on new layers of meanings through its interactions with viewers

No one can remain unmoved by the sea; in its capacity to adopt new meanings it appears infinite, profusely filled with mysterious significance.

The Sea (J.L. Borges)

(Tr, William Baer)

Before our dreams (or terrors) persisted
in mythology and cosmogony,
even before time coined itself in days, there existed,
already, the sea. It was. There was always the sea.
But who is the sea? Who is that old, undisciplined,
violent creature, who’s gnawing away under
the pillars of the earth, who’s also chance and wind,
one and many oceans, and abyss and wonder?
Staring upon the sea, we see it as though
for the first time, sensing the splendor of all free
and elemental things: like afternoons, the glow
of the moon, or a blazing fire. But who is the sea?
And who am I? In time, when my days are passed,
and my final agony’s done, I’ll know, at last.

For this reason, this series of drawings is an homage to the sea, both as a tangible reality and as an imaginative concept.  The paintings shown here seek to depict this reality while acknowledging their role as representations or artistic interpretations, The marks of an indecipherable language add a cryptic commentary to the landscape, telling us something that we can neither understand nor translate, thereby deepening the sense of mystery.  The immensity of it all obscures forms and boundaries. The sea becomes a continuous expanse of horizon, water, and sky, charged with lyricism. It exists in a state of perpetual transformation,simultaneously eternal and ever-changing

This show evokes the notion of Romanticism where the portrayal iof nature serves as an expression of the human soul; here, it is water, that primordial element, which is the protagonist. Contemplation becomes the pursuit, transforming   an image of the landscape into a mirror of the self. The gaze shifts inward, towards a disturbing inner immensity. The only conceivable terrain is to explore the expansive and the enigmatic

It is the realm of the self.