Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present Three Lines, One Square, an exhibition of new and recent paintings, works on paper, and video by Francisco Ugarte. It is the artist’s second solo show with the gallery, and he will be present at the reception on Thursday, June 1st from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. The exhibition will remain on view through Friday, July 7th.

The works in Three Lines, One Square revolve around one of the most basic concepts in art: the line. Created at different scales and on different supports, each is comprised of a single line placed squarely at the center of the picture field and rendered in a restricted palette of black. Although the works appear to be simple brushstrokes at first, they are actually highly finished and exact interpretations of earlier acrylic studies. Copied faithfully down to the minutest detail, the paintings transform the artist’s original intuitive and spontaneous action into an intentional and precise gesture.

In becoming the subject of the work, the lines are elevated from generative tool to conceptual vessel. No longer simple compositional elements, their isolation invites a new reading. The video Untitled (Car), for example, mimics the horizontality of the brushstrokes in the paintings, and hints at a parallel interest in landscapes. Yet despite their evocative simplicity and suggestion of various art historical motifs, the artist is insistent that the works are nothing more than paintings of lines. For him, they represent an attempt to create art using only the most fundamental tools and concepts available to the artist. The exhibition’s sparse installation similarly removes all extraneous elements to encourage the viewer to slow down. As in all of Ugarte’s oeuvre, prolonged looking and contemplation reward viewers with a privileged view of objects distilled to their fundamental elements, their true essences revealed.

Francisco Ugarte holds a BA in Architecture from the Western Institute of Superior and Technological Studies. He has had solo exhibitions at Marfa Contemporary, the Clemente Orozco Museum, and the Experimental Museum El Eco. Select group exhibitions include The Bass Museum of Art, Raúl Anguiano Museum of Art, Museo Jumex, Salón ACME, and Museo Nacional de Arte. His work is held in the Charpenel Collection, Colección Jumex, Coppel Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Orange County Museum of Art, and the Cabañas Cultural Institute, and he was awarded residencies at the Careyes Foundation and Casa Wabi, both in Mexico. In fall 2016, he produced a site-specific installation with SiTE:LAB in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The artist lives and works in Guadalajara.