The Gallery Invaliden1 presents, for the first time in Germany, a solo exhibition by the Spanish artist Santiago Ydáñez.
For the last few years, the painter has been developing work deeply committed to questions of ritual representation, researching moments of cultural values sedimentation. The liturgy and religious icons – in this case Christian ones– are frequently used as a basis for stagings from which the painter isolates and transfers expressions of universal emotions and impulses to painting. Yet he also relies on more primitive references, not necessarily rooted in occidental culture, for example by making use of masks and ointment on his own body. Previously focused on animals, he has more recently exploited the parallels between human emotional expression and animalistic gestures.
