A three-part work in great format, which holds a certain solemnity, stands at the back of the gallery. Seen from a distance, or in a distracted manner, it might appear to be blank. Coming forward, and paying attention, what seemed empty, reveals itself loaded with content. The three canvases that conform Incessantly advancing towards the aim of standing still, disagree in their dimensions and, from one end to the other, operate a degradation of color, up to the point of a white that seems to merge with the gallery’s wall. Similarly, they feature a series of gestures that have been ongoing in Jerónimo Rüedi’s production, at least since 2018, and that resonate with his interests in language and poetry. These strokes seem to conform and conclude right at the moment when they might come to suggest a particular meaning; in this way, they remain ambiguous. Some are even blurred under layers of glazes, as if they were in the middle of a fog bank – an action that gives visibility to the temporality of the pictorial process and, in itself, of the conformation of the image. Their presence detonates an experience that could be qualified as shared and that invites us to decipher them or associate them with other referents. In this way, they can be compared to avant-garde examples within the field of visual poetry.
This triptych by Rüedi demonstrates his intention to articulate a pictorial proposal that does not lend itself to accelerated consumption but rather demands some attention. The same happens with a pair of works, Noise and noise pursuing power and All things ascend to unity, hung on the two side walls of the gallery and characterized, in contrast to the triptych, by a determined chromatic research aimed at exploring contradictory aspects: light and darkness, solidity and immateriality. Some previous paintings, presented in 2021 in Drawing the contours of fire, already exhibited this series of concerns but starting from the solution of monochrome. On this occasion, Rüedi resorts to primary colors, which are also in play in the triptych, only in a mixed manner. In these two pieces, and mainly in Noise and noise pursuing power, the chromatic treatment happens in an optical way, something that could be related to some photographic processes. The painting is also distinguished in the way it suggests a spatial situation, although the coordinates of this remain totally ambiguous. On the surface, one can appreciate the characteristic gestures of Ruedi’s production, that sort of “proto-language” as the artist described it. Another aspect that stands out in the work are certain points that, through the chromatic handling, seem to radiate light, as if they were energy fields. The interest in contradictions and antagonisms is also at play in All things ascend to unity, a dark painting, and in that sense solid, in which the light seems to filter and reflect.
A third body of work belongs to the series Yupos, pieces in which a painted background is covered by a polypropylene sheet that has also been intervened by Rüedi. These pieces are explicit about the artist’s interest in transparency achieved through the application of layers; something that, once again, synthesizes a kind of contradiction. The pictorial solution of the four pieces on display, The change in ideas about change #1 – #4, can be related to both the triptych and Noise and noise pursuing power and All things ascend to unity, the cover is treated as the former work while the background as the latter pair – the polypropylene seems to filter the iridescence behind it. In this way, this set of pieces is explicit about a central concern of the artist: to point out the limits of habitual perception and thus the limitations of understanding reality as a totality from that position.
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— Daniel Garza Usabiaga. Mexico City 2022
