Piege 1978

Ivan Tovar’s painting, Piege, features these airbrushed shapes in an infinite surreal space, it’s hard to know what to make of them, or how they were even made. I find myself wondering about the process, how the artist layered those luminous gradients to create the illusion of these forms. It’s like Tovar is thinking about the future, but with a classical technique. Each object, from the floating disc to the bone-like curve, seems to hum with its own light, casting shadows that are both precise and dreamlike. Look at the way the colours shift on the large floating table-top, it's a symphony of blues, oranges and greys. There’s a sense of mystery here, like peering into a world governed by its own strange logic. It makes me think of Yves Tanguy, another painter who conjured up these otherworldly forms, but Tovar’s work has a sleekness to it, a kind of futuristic elegance. The painting becomes a space where the familiar and the strange can coexist.