Galleria Franco Noero is pleased to announce Oils, a new solo exhibition by Mario García Torres, for the second time in Turin at the gallery, following his latest project The sun makes me blind, Suite Golfo di Napoli (Untitled I-XI + Napoli), created in the Summer of 2021 in Naples on the occasion of the first edition of Panorama Italics in Procida.

As on previous occasions, once again a new and unprecedented body of work has been specially conceived by the Mexican artist for the gallery spaces in Via Mottalciata.

Inspired by specific episodes in Mexico's recent 20th-century history, García Torres constructs a narrative plot that gives rise to a reflection on the idea of theatre, the concept of spectacularisation and the modes of enjoyment generated by both. It is an opportunity for the artist to reflect on elements deeply rooted in the culture of his country at that time and strongly characterising its public life.

The series of oil paintings produced for his exhibition constitute the artist's first approach to this technique, a desire to engage with figurative painting, proceeding in parallel with a very personal investigation into the concept of “truth” in the representations he has chosen, into the ideas of reality and imagination, into the boundary between true and false, a series of connotations that conceptually resonate with and closely reflect the cultural and social tradition of his native Mexico.

Originating from photographs or archive images, deliberately altered mechanically before their final rendering on canvas, the images created by Garcia Torres in his paintings express an intimate reflection not only on the medium of painting, but also on the use and interpretation of existing visual material. The tension between action, intention and contemplation fuels the dialogue on the pictorial gesture, the state of painting, its codes and the ever-evolving role of the symbolic.