Pivot: Francisco Gabuardy & Fredy Gabuardy at Beco Gallery
February 5 - March 5, 2021
Pivot brings together seventeen works by Francisco Gabuardy & Fredy Gabuardy, in a Lodger takeover of Beco Gallery, which exists within Beco Flowers. Francisco & Fredy are twin brothers, whose independent, yet complimentary studio practices are informed by shared origins and experiences. This is the very first time they have presented a two-person exhibit. This floral shop gallery in the post-industrial Crossroads Arts District is an essential ground for artists who both merge the organic and mechanical.
There are seemingly endless formal and conceptual conversations between the works, spoken in a twin language that is ambiguous, layered, fantastical, intuitive, poetic and infographic all at once. The relationship between the works in Pivot provides a glimpse into the relationship between the brothers themselves; visually autonomous work, yet inextricable when you get down to core creative impulses. There is also a subtle, underlying collaborative function between the artists. Cast-off materials are often exchanged, and their studio proximity has long fostered simultaneous processing of memory through avant-garde risk-taking.
Francisco's sculptural paintings combine architecture and ecology in ways that are surprising and inventive. Every color, form, and embedded pictogram symbolizes deeply personal narratives. Each brush stroke and texture is precisely applied. Fredy's sculptures blend the natural and industrial via material play, combining reclaimed wood and metal. Accessible and pleasing simply as pure design, these, too, contain deeper symbolism. Works may be viewed as unique machines, as body abstractions, or perhaps complex toys or puzzles. There is a science fiction element that creates an uncertainty as to whether these images and objects are speaking from a past version of the future, or from some future version of the past. Tension pervades in this exhibit, but that unease is balanced with moments of bright playfulness and innate humor.
