NADA New York 2022

Juan Tessi (b. 1974, Lima, Peru, lives and works in Buenos Aires) engages in an on-going exploration of pictorial language. He is fiercely committed to the medium of painting, investigating its internal tensions and relations: oil paint on primed versus raw linen; the canvas as body and paint as skin; line vis-a-vis color and paint; the borders of the canvas, its outside/inside.

This work has certain sections painted on linen which has been first primed with Gesso, allowing the color to remain rich, but also charcoal drawing directly on raw, non-primed linen. There is an overall rhythm to the painting, punctuated with accents such as the red fingernails, which gives the piece an almost musical quality.