Opening

Tuesday, April 30th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm

On View

April 30 - June 9, 2019

New York City, NY -- The Louis K. Meisel Gallery is pleased to announce Skin and Soul, a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Photorealist painter Bernardo Torrens. Known for his incredibly detailed and realistic nude paintings, Torrens has perfected the technique of painting touchable and soft skin, to create enduring works imbued with emotion.

By painting nudes, Torrens uses the human body as a vehicle to convey emotion, while simultaneously continuing a long tradition found throughout art history. In a time of changing attitudes, Torrens says that for him, “[the body] is the essence of the human being, and it is timeless. When you put clothing on, you dat[e] the person [in time] and that, for me, is portraiture. I like that too, but it is not the main body of work. If I were trying to capture the physical elements of my models, I would probably choose photography instead of painting. My models are tools to express myself. Somehow, I always paint myself, as I suppose many artists do more or less.”

A self-taught painter, Torrens achieves a flawless finish to his works by employing the use of traditional acrylic painting techniques combined with airbrush to capture the ethereal translucency of skin and flesh. Through these personally-developed techniques, his paintings recreate sensory moments. Torrens’ figures are often the sole subject of his paintings, posed upon solid backgrounds. This renders the figure’s body positioning and gesture the ultimate focus of his work. For the artist, it is the nuances of the natural form—the play of muscle tension or the position of a hand—that conveys the sublime.

Bernardo Torrens: Skin and Soul is on display at 141 Prince Street, New York, NY from April 30th to June 8th. An artist’s reception will be held on April 30th from 5:30 to 7:30pm. For more information, please contact Louis K. Meisel Gallery at [email protected]