Opening Don’t Get Me Wrong

Last weekend Ripo opened Don’t Get Me Wrong; his first solo show in his adopted home town Barcelona. Ripo sent us some pictures of the opening of his show and his work and I had a little chat with him about his show, his different works and his techniques.

“The exhibition didn’t have a single theme or one body of work that I was focusing on. It was a culmination of a few styles and ideas I had been working on in my studio since I finally got into one last June. The lack of one may have also been why I wasn’t trying to have a show here in Barcelona until now anyway. Because it is my new hometown the show had a really massive turnout.

“The various series on display include the Vulgar & Vain series of drawings (the calligraphic, decorative drawings of Fuck, Cunt, Bitch, Cock). Then there are four News Headline paintings. They are smaller so I didn’t recreate the erased news concept that I did with the 10 Days painting but rather focused on creating each one as a single image and reference to one news story. I did use work the technique of painting and then destroying and reassembling with the larger canvas works that I showed. The long horizontal one read “Your Name/Tu Nombre/El Teu Nom” (Your Name in English, Spanish, and Catalan), and the Black & White and White & Black canvases.

10 DAYS from ripo on Vimeo.

“The technique abstracts the letters and words to take away their meaning, focusing on the color and form while still creating through the use of words and letters. Your Name was also a theme that I repeated through a number of the other drawings and wood panel paintings in the show.

“Then of course I’m playing with the ideas of excess and need as well as textures and raw materials in the collaged sculptural paintings and the brick wall installation. The two larger ones are titled Never Enough #1 and Never Enough #2, and read Time and Money respectively, and when read from one end of the room to the other all together they read Time & (the brick wall) Money. They are both painted on top of entirely found materials collaged together and then framed. The frame puts the whole three dimensional object into a single plane, flattening this sculptural piece into a two dimensional painting.

“I didn’t have a single favorite piece but everyone I spoke to had their own favorite, and the best was that everyone loved a different one. I guess that says more about the body of work as a whole rather than about one single piece.”

The show will be on until February 24.