REVIEW
What Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia Does for Love
By Moto Okawa
November 23, 2015
Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, Por Amor, 2015, oil and thread on canvas, 14″ x 11″
In Plegarias, a collection of Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia’s new pet project of sort at CB1 Gallery, an intimate painting — appropriately hung all by itself on one wall — is most exquisite among the eclectic gathering of small works on panel and paper, plus one sculptural construction suspended in midair. If the curatorial intent was that of distillation, Por Amor alone would have done just fine.
Painted in oil and stitched with thread, the humble painting weaves together Segovia’s two-dimensional craft and three-dimensional materials into a single flat composition. Referencing a Catholic faith and drawing from its aesthetics, the resulting palette vibrates with bright colors and the forms radiate outwardly over the golden sea covering the darkness— much like a highly decorated prayer candle being lit up. It is not a stretch to say that Segovia is to a Catholic mission what Chagall was to a Jewish synagogue.
The small scale of the painting further reaches backwards in time and crosses the Atlantic to reflect the private nature of devotional art. Many times, a picture speaks a thousand words more than what the thousand words can. Sometimes, colors alone have much to say and they do not discriminate no matter the one’s spiritual propensity.