Last week, we had the pleasure of attending the grand opening reception of San Diego’s newest art gallery, Franco Moragrega. Nestled between East Village and Logan Heights, just a few blocks east of the 5 Interstate, the space is located at the crux of this budding SD hotspot.

This new venture is born out of the desire of its founders, Entrepreneur Juan Pablo Franco and architect Alvaro Moragrega, to revive the importance of art – and the importance of owning it – back to our culture. Their partnership represents their shared vision of investing in art for future generations to learn from, appreciate and enjoy.

Because of modern advances in technology, and the way art is sometimes produced, their aim is to rekindle the relationship between artist and consumer: To remind the consumer of the process of making art and all that is involved to create one unique, singular work.

 

Read on to learn more about the artists whose work is being shown in the current exhibit: From Biology to Identity: Explorations on Human’s Inner History

 

The most basic human being reality consists in being able to experience ourselves as biological, basic and substantial entities. Our humanity is identified by our physical appearance, the way we move through our environment as well as how we interpret our visual atmosphere and its transition based on our contextual sense.

 

Luis Rodrigo Medina reflects upon our biology through the exercise of repetitive organic strokes that resemble the gestures of bacteria, viruses or even slices of cells that project our most primitive and molecular self.

 

He then initiates calligraphy exercises where each stroke becomes unique, irreplaceable, like recently created words from a new language revealing unknown codes. These small and large scale exercises relate to a new level of human self-awareness.  Different calligraphy exercises extend and grow until they reach poetic levels of two-dimensional form.

Pedro Escapa for many years has been including various common themes in his work, such as how he himself is reflected upon art; how art becomes a symbol and has meaning.  This exhibition of his work leads up to a grand finale with oil paintings that represent other artworks. A study on a piece of art about other masterpieces, the representation of a symbol and the multiple symbolism reinterpretations it can adapt.

 

In his photographic work, Escapa modifies reality through the digital manipulation of photographs. At first glance it appears as if we are looking at moving photographic images. The reality is that these images have been repeatedly overlapped to obtain this effect. We can recall Andy’s Warhol work and his repetition technique, which intended to create new forms and unravel exceptional or uncommon meaning from the most ordinary objects. But, unlike Warhol, Escapa doesn’t make evident the repetition in his work, but rather allows the viewer to decipher what at first sight appear to be images in movement.

 

Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Sol Lewitt, among others are reinterpreted in their absence and their symbolism is used to imply a different meaning and concept. For artist Pedro Escapa, identity becomes a transferable tag. Within this transitional process, a new identity is generated which escapes its primitive meaning and transforms itself into silent words of things that cannot be be spoken or expressed.

The gallery is now open by appointment only, Monday through Friday. To schedule an appointment to view the collection, you can contact their Art Director at 619.271.7215. They are located at:

102 South 21st St, San Diego, 92113.