Apuntes para un paisaje. Marcelo Fuentes
Alzueta Gallery presents Apuntes para un paisaje, Marcelo Fuentes’ first exhibition at the gallery. From his early series devoted to the city to his most recent works, architecture and the urban landscape have occupied a central place in his painting. Throughout his career, Fuentes has developed a contemplative approach to these spaces, moving away from description to explore their more atmospheric and subjective dimension.
The representation of the urban landscape occupies a particular place in the history of painting. For centuries, the city appeared primarily as a backdrop or setting for a narrative. Gradually, and particularly from the Early Modern period onwards, it began to emerge as a subject in its own right: a space that could be observed and interpreted through painting.
Marcelo Fuentes’ work belongs to this long tradition, but approaches it from a deeply personal perspective. His paintings usually begin with recognisable spaces: buildings, bridges, fragments of cities and architectural structures that nevertheless seem removed from any descriptive intent. The reference to a specific place remains, but becomes increasingly indistinct. Architecture is simplified, contours are blurred and colour takes on an atmospheric function, transforming what we initially recognise as a city into a more open image.
In his landscapes, the city does not appear as a setting for urban life. There is barely any human presence. What remains is the built environment: its volumes, perspectives, light and empty spaces. In this sense, Fuentes shifts the focus from what happens in the city to the experience of contemplating it.
Apuntes para un paisaje brings together a group of works that can be understood as approaches, fragments or interpretations of these places. They are images that stem from observation, but do not seek to fix what is observed. Like sketches or notes, they retain something of the reality from which they emerge while leaving room for memory, imagination and painting itself. Without seeking to offer a specific vision of the city, Marcelo Fuentes creates landscapes that inhabit the space between what is seen and what is imagined. The city thus ceases to be merely a place and becomes a pictorial experience: a way of looking at, remembering and reconstructing the landscape.
