Mirages #5, 2020

Javier Rey   Emerging artists

Mirages #5 by Javier Rey  Archival pigment print 

Medium size: 75 cm H x 55 cm W.  Edition of 5 + 1AP 

More Editions & Sizes: Small: 55 cm H x 40 cm W.  Edition of 7 + 2AP Large: 123.5 cm H x 90 cm W.  Edition of 2 + 1AP Unframed 

This artwork presents a surreal juxtaposition, featuring a sleek, modern skyscraper piercing the sky, crowned with a contrastingly rugged, industrial structure. The tower’s surface is a reflective glass, seamlessly blending into the cloudy heavens, amplifying the tower's ethereal presence. Atop this polished edifice lies an unexpected assemblage of weathered buildings and protruding metal elements, evoking a sense of urban decay amidst advancement. The clouds, as if whispering secrets, envelop the upper portion, creating an illusion of the tower dissolving into the sky. This striking contrast between the pristine and the worn underscores themes of nature versus human innovation and the passage of time. The work compels the viewer to contemplate the impact of industrialization on the natural world, inviting reflection on progression and obsolescence within a single frame.

Mirages. The idea of the monumental, utopian and modern city is constantly debated due to its own fragility. The idealization of the city is weak and vulnerable, threatened by the rudeness of its inhabitants. Mirages is a project that interprets this unrealizable idea of the city, creating a route of buildings that seem to float unpolluted, breaking the uniformity of the sky and integrating into it like castles of glass, where contemporary society deposits the idea of unattainable perfection. These crystalline masses reflect the sky as if they were above all things, camouflaging themselves, creating a bridge between the natural and the artificial.