MIQUEL PONCE

ES / CAT / ENG

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Sequence 
Art Públic UV , Burjassot Campus, Valencia, October 2022.

Sequence tries to create a succession of images based on the well-known Fibonacci sequence, using the so-called "recurrence relationship" to create a logic within the process of generating images. The Fibonacci series originates after adding the first two numbers, 0 and 1, which generate a third, the series would continue adding the second and the third to generate the fourth and so on, or what is summarized in this formula: n = n-1 + n-2.

The sequence starts as follows:→ 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610...

Fibonacci numbers appear recurrently in mathematics, but they can also be found in nature, such as on tree branches, flowers, or even in the human body. In this case, this premise serves to create a sequence of images that use this same recurrence relationship but in a visual sense, using the two previous images to generate a third, and so on.Starting from a simple element such as the circle, and understanding this element as a unit, this work uses the Fibonacci sequence as a way of involving mathematics in the creative process of generating images, seeing how certain guidelines can condition the work process and starting from simple forms to reach more complex ones.

Ara les possibilitats són infinites (The possibilities are infinite now)
Galería Fran Reus, Palma de Mallorca, june 2022

The possibilities are infinite (now), because later they are no longer infinite. When an idea materializes, everything takes shape and ends up being something concrete, something specific... but at an earlier point, all the possibilities were infinite. Ponce decides to make it concrete, like someone looking for the solution to a problem, like someone looking to find an answer, but in this case, the answer can be very complex and it is not until the artist decides that this is the answer that it becomes valid.
Process is a word with an important sense. It gives sense to the artistic proposal, based on process as a temporal decisions' succession which conjugate an image or object. The artist think about that decisions as a premeditated thing, with sense, but it is not always like this. The human being search some meaning on all they can see, but not everything have it. When we speak about process, we directly believe that all have an explanation and it's the result of a complex premeditation; but, sometimes things just happen and artists are capable ofseeing it.Ponce is interested in the process as something cyclical, which feeds back, in that which you encountered some time ago, reappears some time later, as if it were a leitmotif that accompanies you. His attention is focused on the motifs that reappear, on those elements that make sense when the gaze comes across them again, or on pieces that are completed in a magical way".

La naturaleza de las cosas, Cap. 1 (The nature of things, ch. 1)
Together with Cris Bartual, l'Espai, Torrent, May 2022.


Herny David Thoreau said that all good things are wild and free. Thoreau loved to walk in nature. Well, to say that he loved it is an understatement. In Walking he goes so far as to say that he could not maintain his health and spirits without spending at least four hours a day walking. Very probably the artists Cris Bartual and Miquel Ponce do not need to walk so much, despite their vision of everyday nature and their relationship with the human being is just as profound as that of this eccentric American.
This exhibition constitutes a constant game between the relationship between the artificial and the natural. It's about how we depend on nature, yes, but also how we influence it, how we affect it, how we conquer it and how it reconquers us in due time. One can simply watch Life Without Us and realize that beyond Hoover Dam, radioactive waste and plastic bags, little permanent footprint will we leave before our structures are filled with flowers.
And the matter is about flowers, at least at first. Of flowers and images of flowers, “this is not a pipe” was said in the twenties, “this is not a flower” we could say in the twenties. Just as humans intervene in nature and nature in us, these artists intervene in the images they create, with modification after modification. From the wild flower to the image of the wild flower, and from this, to the image of the wild flower treated, modified, superimposed and exposed in multiple formats. A black and white with impossible framing that could be the work of Maya Deren. A full-fledged game of mirrors, one that disorients and hypnotizes us, but also strangely brings us closer to the subject portrayed.
Closeness is also the issue, that and the distant and unattainable. Here the limits are blurred, a mundane stone, of those that we see every day and to which we do not pay attention, becomes a moon rock or even a fragment of the Kuiper belt, while stars a googolplex away and from unimaginable size they seem mere reflections in the water. The touch is so present that it seems that we can touch the cosmos and bathe in the constellations. In fact, we don't take a bath, but we can touch the asteroid belt thanks to the constellations of rocks located on the ground, as close to our hand as they seem far away; a reality that remains hidden until one notices.
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︎︎︎Full text by Albert Alcañiz

Las formas que emergen (The shapes that emerge)
PAM!PAM!21, Reales Atarazanas, Valencia, February 2022.

Las formas que emergen is a project that explores the process of pictorial creation and production. This work is built from those materials found in the workspace, which serve as a starting point for the production of this project, having as its main motive the idea of the rest generated by the process itself. In it, painting is conceived as a residue, as a mark or a sign that evidences both the random and the premeditated, the tactile and the physical, where the painting establishes a formal game through its own constructive elements.
In this project, the work is understood as something that evolves and mutates, that is created from the process with materials that still retain the traces of what they were before, focusing precisely on those registers, cracks and marks that reveal those forms that configure the work.
This work, as a game, and dialogue between the different languages, develops a way of approaching artistic production from the constructive and the procedural, addressing issues such as the image, linked to making and its relationship with materials from a physical and experimental point of view.

Un proceso, 2021 (A process, 2021)

This publication collects a series of ideas, thoughts and works that revolve around the same concern, the process. These pages bring together different works produced during 2021 that have served as an approach to this issue, working with it as something complex and recurrent when producing. The result is a work that shows these experiences on the process, from the tactile, the random, the intuitive and the experimental.

Self-published publication of 100 copies, digital printing on recycled Biotop Offset paper + sandpaper.

December 2021.

Making-of
Novella Gallery Sagunto, València, September 2021.

As if it were a movie set, in this case, the studio is the place where discarded elements that are often left out of the work are analyzed and collected. ‘Making-of’ focuses on the process of pictorial work itself, where it is shown how images are created, always starting from the process and the materials generated and discarded. Without any written script, the works are built as through a series of coincidences, conditions and discoveries that simply occur.

Un espacio de construcción (A construction space)
Galería Blanca Soto, Madrid, marzo de 2021.

Un espacio de construcción arises from understanding the format and limits of the work as a conditioner when configuring the image. From various materials, many of them derived from the process, Miquel Ponce creates a series of compositions that emerge from that structure of the limit, configured from the space in which the work is delimited. The works presented here approach painting as something that develops in a specific space, the space of the paper or the space of the canvas. It is within these limits that this construction of images occurs, which are articulated in a structural way and which in turn show the marks and the remains of the construction process. The series of collages made between 2020 and 2021 shows the interest in working around a system, which highlights the material and procedural aspects. Working with different elements such as paper, sandpaper, or wax, the works acquire a physical and even tactile character, which ends up being transferred to other formats.

Desprenderse (To break away)
Casa de Velázquez, Madrid, noviembre de 2020.


(...) Desprenderse means being aware of our fragility and vulnerability as beings. It is giving way to change, to the new, to the uncertain on many occasions. We speak from what we know, what happens to us and what surrounds us. The instability of a given moment and the fragility with which we see what happens around us is probably what makes us build from the remains of a past action, or a distant event. To detach is to change state. The constant fact of ceasing to belong as a result of change is what drives us to an attraction for matter that certain detachments leave in their wake.

When we refer to what emerges we are talking in many cases of a remainder, of what remains among the ruins of a demolition, or that is forgotten, sedimented and prevents us from seeing the whole of what was. There is a temporal quality in our works, which come from a moment, from a cluster of circumstances and factors on which we try to focus our attention: stop looking and see those temporal and pictorial issues that surround us. Look at the rest as a response to our time of continuous production and constant stimuli; fixating on the minimal and residual within in a world of scattered attention can be an act of resistance.

The idea of detaching has the materiality of a precise time, of a body that falls, that separates and ceases to be. This tangible quality of the temporal is what gives us the sensitivity to move away from the two-dimensional and get closer to a painting that arises on many occasions from its materials. A painting that contains the trace of that detachment and that shows the signs of a previous event.

Desprenderse is losing references to the other, it is the way to leave something and continue. Continue interpreting otherness, nourishing it and creating a fabric of its essence among what remains, among those remains.

D’aquella pols (From that dust)
Museo de la Universidad de Alicante, September 2020.

D’aquella pols is a project that is articulated from those components that surround the painting, such as its construction elements and its materials derived from the process, starting from the idea of waste and remainder as the backbone. The works are based on those materials that come from a past action or an event that is no longer there. Painting becomes a physical object, giving importance to the matter that composes it, and leaving behind the idea of a painted image. The title alludes to the transformation of the materials through the passage of time, making evident the transience of the objects that inhabit the studio, which often end up being converted into other things.

Lo que queda (What is left)
L’espai, Torrent,  May 2019.

Lo que queda refers to everything that happens within the four walls of his studio, which, metaphorically speaking, would be the own mind. The artist uses painting as an exit to nowhere, or rather to a labyrinth. This labyrinth is full of questions and silences, infinite beginnings and unfinished fragments that transport us to different places. In this exhibition, Miquel Ponce shows us a series of abstract paintings, full of hidden messages through illegible texts. The pictorial references that he uses come mainly from urban space and writing. These references help him to investigate and delve into certain topics such as the occult, erosion, chance or waste, allowing him to access the painting from a different perspective. He works from materials such as acrylic paint, aerosol, and other processes that allow him to manipulate paint intuitively. The different processes used in the execution of the works turn the painting into a residual image that speaks both of our time and of itself.