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.

Tessi’s work flows easily from figuration to abstraction and back, as he is mostly concerned with pushing his investigations on painting to new places. Nevertheless even in his most abstract works there is a subtle reference to the body, its drives and desires. His recent paintings veer towards abstraction and are characterized by their atmospheric, enigmatic quality.