Luis Varela-Rico, Peso Neto at Nuwu Art Gallery + Community Center

Photo courtesy D.K. Sole

Luis Varela-Rico, Peso Neto at Nuwu Art Gallery + Community Center

By D.K. Sole

The first artwork I ever saw from Luis Varela-Rico was a gigantic hand made up of thin slices of metal hanging from a rectangular frame – you could walk around it and watch the massive object disappear as you tried to look at it side-on. The works in his first solo show are more practical, abstract, and obdurate, mostly metal or ceramic vessels shaped something like planed and tilted volcanoes. The front desk told me they were originally conceived as planters, but the contrast between the rising slopes and the plummet into a dark interior crater was interesting enough not to need plants. The repetition of the vessels around the room was satisfying: a pattern I could walk through and reconfigure as I went. Different elements of this pattern were larger or smaller than others: red or silver, thinner, flatter, painted yellow, and so on. I’m glad Nuwu is showing a lot of them because one on its own would not have the same effect. The friable rusted surfaces are a call-out to Richard Serra’s big walk-through pieces like Band at LACMA, and they give the tough material the same sense of fragility and impermanence (the rust is easily marked). His sensitivity to surfaces is repeated around the room in other sculptures: a matt skull crowned with shining polished beams; a set of dark moulds with visible welds that illustrate the labor behind the volcanoes. There’s even a stencilled painting. Artworks this heavy are a challenge to install and display, so thanks to Nuwu for taking them on.

Luis Varela-Rico Peso Neto
Nuwu Art Gallery + Community Center, 1331 S. Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas
September 7 - October 26, 2024

Published by Wendy Kveck on October 25, 2024.