With “It Doesn’t Belong to Us,” SomoS Arthouse presents the first exhibition in Berlin and Germany by Spanish artist Carlos Pesudo (b.1992, Castellón), on view August 17th through 28th. On display are a new series of paintings produced during an extended artist residency at SomoS, dealing with the ambiguity of perception and scale, while reflecting on the artistic process itself. Already increasingly recognized in the Spanish art world, the Madrid-based artist has exhibited at art fairs and at art galleries, both nationally, and internationally, in cities such as Dublin, Prague, Krakow, among others. In 2019 he received the prestigious “Premio MARTE Castellón” art prize at the MARTE Art Fair in Castellón.

Working primarily in large-scale abstract painting and video, Pesudo focuses on the process of creative gestation, using the allure of the unfinished, the “non-finito.” The artist takes influence from art movements such as Spanish Art Informel, Abstract Expressionism, and the Zero movement, combining them with visual cues taken from the modern urban environment, such as Brazilian “Pichação,” or the bulbous 3D lettering of graffiti writing, techniques that share his work’s keen sense of urgency, fast execution, and dynamism. Indeed, “notation” and “writing” and also “scribbling” may describe his impulsive, often session-based way of painting well, as it continuously references language, however cryptic. Pesudo is interested in “how the action and non-action are balanced on the canvas,” adding: “the kind of painting I aim to achieve is based on gesture and spontaneity, but also on reflection and pause.”

Pesudo mainly paints with oil, but often includes techniques such as spray paint, marker, graphite, also paper and glued canvas, or any other material at hand. In “It Doesn’t Belong to Us,” his artistic vocabulary consists of rudimentary signs, brisk brushstrokes, and enigmatic figures rendered in a reduced color palette. The spacious compositions contrast cool colors against warm ones, with many areas of the canvases left unpainted. The painted planes rarely cross, allowing for high luminosity. The forms are abstract, resembling amorphous three-dimensional shapes and ciphers, their particular inscrutability makes them hard to interpret. Also featured in the exhibition is a video piece shot through a macro lens, bringing into view what the naked human eye does not see. The highly magnified video content is then abstracted, removing the subject matter from a perceptual reality that pertains to the human scale.

It’s this inability to name or distinguish precisely what is represented in "It Doesn’t Belong to Us'' that constitutes the show’s central experience. The forms depicted in the works are familiar but seem to exist outside of our realm. As contemporary art critic and writer María von Touceda states in an interview with Pesudo for Elemental Magazine, “Ambiguity, that which positions us between information and disinformation, takes us to a more sensorial world where the poetic emerges.”

Followers of abstract painting, young Spanish art, or those interested in experimental video should not miss the opportunity to see Carlos Pesudo’s new work in his German debut at SomoS.