“Machangos” a solo show by Jordi Alós

Opening: 14 May 2pm - 6pm   

14 May - 30 July 2023

Vroom & Varossieau is pleased to present Machangos, showcasing new works by Mexican artist Jordi Alós marking the artist’s first solo show in Europe. The exhibition features large-sized paintings depicting habits, daily life scenes and street performers in a playful, humorous and visually brilliant composition; and a new series of colourful and vibrant Machangos portraits.

The word Machangos has been strongly used in the Canary Islands to define, in a funny although disqualifying tone, someone as an eccentric person or a clown. Hence Jordi adopted this peculiar word. They come to life in 2015, he picked up this series recently again and since then Machangos are gaining even more strength. The artist often combines their features with real-life subjects, creating a unique world of his own that is a paradox: at once cheerful and irritating, simultaneously familiar and strange.

Shaped by a vigorous and energetic gesture, Alòs’ colourful and naive characters maintain an element of likeable ambiguity, encouraging viewers to question whether or not to trust their enigmatic and sly smiles. About his practice, the artist has recently stated: “l am strongly interested in revealing different layers of the same personality, often inaudibly. Through my work, I try to make this condition visible, with the aim of rethinking contemporary coexistence”.

With references to both art brut and realism, Alós’ work focuses on the human being, his nature and social life. In this exhibition the artist invites us to a colourful and multilayered world in which he explores the connection between humans and the environment, daily-life scenarios, a mixture of fiction and reality, in a way in which he wants to question and rethink our relationship with the other and our surroundings.