Raúl Illarramendi's 'Drawing from Nature' at Galerie Karsten Greve

Raúl Illarramendi's exhibition 'Drawing from Nature' ran from September 3 to 21, 2013 at Galerie Karsten Greve in Paris. The show presented large-scale drawings based on traces found in urban environments, such as finger marks on dusty truck bodies, impacts on gates, and spit stains on walls (termed 'Spit Drawing' or SD). Illarramendi developed a technique that minimizes the artist's hand: the motif emerges from untouched areas within a gouache-prepared ground, reversing the traditional hierarchy of form and background. This process creates an illusion of the trace as an imprint, producing a strong sense of presence through absence (titled 'Evidence of Absence' or EA). The artist describes it as 'a work of memory containing just enough realism to deceive attention.' One work, EA n°131 (Sucio), depicts a dirty wall with the word 'sucio' (dirty) written in dust, highlighting the ambiguity of cleaning that leaves its own traces. Illarramendi shares with abstract painters like Antoni Tapiès and Cy Twombly a fascination with accidents, which he incorporates by imitation. The exhibition also includes DFN (2013), a homage to Paul Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire series, reflecting Illarramendi's aim to find equivalents to nature rather than transform it.