ART-REVIEW:José María Sicilia-Phasma

Spanish artist José María Sicilia who recently presented his series of artworks entitled “Phasma” at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris, is using  an entirely manual labor and process, embroidery with a very contemporary and fresh way, combined with painting.He creates images that captivate the viewer into stories through the narrative writing of vibrant colors that balance between abstraction and image, abstraction and figuration, minimalism and expressionism and where really from one point the thread joins the stories harmonizes them with the surface of the canvas. In his artworks, color a visual effect plays the same role that plays in painting as well. This very good series of works reminded us that painting icons can be produced with many different means and even by a man, something that does not happen often, since, embroidery on canvas, knitting or the loom is intertwined with women artists in the history of contemporary art. The artworks were in complete harmony with the gallery space and in this it contributed both their size and shape, even the smaller drawings that were exhibited in a smaller room of the gallery, were playing a complementary role in this dialogue that made the exhibition even more interesting and distinct.-Efi Michalarou