By WAC | 2 SEP 2022

The project that Charlie Billingham presents in Travesía Cuatro flirts with the double meaning of the English expression "to be at sea" and with the desire to embrace the multiple nature of the real. Could we bear to be at sea in the midst of a storm? Or: can we cope with the ups and downs or the struggles of our time if we do not enjoy them? The artist recreates, precisely, the chaos and confusion of these on the walls of the gallery.

The artist is interested in de-contextualizing. He wants to suppress the original narratives contained in the satirical engravings and drawings of the 19th century (particularly those of the Georgian and Regency periods). He cuts them up and recomposes them by isolating singular moments, gestures or expressions and, with this working material, produces his paintings.

At Travesía Cuatro, he animates characters whose heads are unfolded, or outlines objects multiplied at the domestic level; with the aim that —by asking ourselves why— we participate in the vertiginous, given that we do not have an explanation for what we see and what surrounds us.

If Billingham's storm catches up with us, it remains to be seen whether we will grasp the inexplicable in order to be with the things that surround us or whether we will remain, by contrast, oblivious to them and will not alleviate the anxiety that our era provokes in us. Will it be given to us, then, to fit in with the course of the days if we do not enjoy the confusion, the perplexity or the absurdity? The artist takes the step, maybe because he knows how to be at sea. It is a question of following this artist and —at least emotionally— not being constrained by our century.

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