Exhibition by Josep M. Codina and Roser Sales within the framework of the Assilah Forum

Within the 43rd Moussem Culturel International in Assilah on October 19, the exhibitions of the Catalan artists Josep M. Codina and Roser Sales were inaugurated. Both were invited to the previous autumn's workshops (which, like every year, take place at the Palau de la Medina d'Assilah and which bring together artists from all over the world) and have been able to exhibit this year their recent work, produced specifically by on occasion

Roser Sales (who is also responsible for the engraving workshop there) has presented a collection of works on paper inspired by the sentimental imprint of that stay in Assilah. Freedom has taken precedence over the orthodoxy of the technique, which is why the exhibited pieces mix engraving with touches of drawing or collage. They are evanescent compositions like dreams or memories, a rhythmic flow of intersecting undulating lines in the middle of which often emerge floating organic forms in pastel tones that generate a subtle play of transparencies. The author is inspired by nature, but does not imitate it but rather evokes intangible elements such as the wind and the persistent noise of the Atlantic swell that beats around the walls of the Medina. It also presents a peculiar tribute to eroded fragments of hydraulic tiles that were once part of a home, found right there, by the sea, in enlarged and manipulated black and white photographs.

For his part, JM Codina offers in his sample, on the one hand, the line of work that has characterized him for almost his entire career around a main theme, the human skin, which reflects the signs he leaves on it the passage of time, anonymous author, to each person: wrinkles, scars, stains... which become indelible signs of identity. These skin graphics are transformed into abstractions that, through an innate sense of harmony, transfer the poetics of the concept to the poetics of form. Coinciding with his stay in Assilah Codina has begun a period of intense dedication to painting, and this has become evident in a leap in his evolution towards a less elaborate praxis than that which included paraffin, with more use of color and more direct techniques where the stain of intense color is combined with networks of small insistent strokes. Next to these pieces of a fairly spontaneous expressiveness, we see, however, a set of highly worked pieces where the light emerges from the darkness in a more reflective and heralding concept, close to the great masters of the Baroque.