Galería Tomás March is currently presenting recent work by Juan Ugalde (Bilbao, 1958). Comprising 16 paintings and a video, "New nuclear bio organic" is Ugalde’s second exhibition in our gallery.

“The core theme is advertising. What I took as my starting point was the huge quantity of cute little animals or cartoon-like dolls used to sell us biscuits, scouring pads... or investment funds. These idyllic worlds shoved down our throats by consumer society advertising, catchy slogans or brightly coloured special offers of all kinds.
Underlying the whole exhibition is a tone of parody, using humour to get under the skin of the myriad of stupid situations we come across on a daily basis. On one hand, we have the food industry bashing us over the head with all-things bio and organic. This, of course, is not incompatible with an unbridled consumption of energy and "nuclear programmes".
The new twist to these latest paintings is the almost complete disappearance of photos from my works, plus the greater use of colour. This is especially visible when compared with my previous series which was basically in a spectrum of greys and out-of-focus snapshots. In these paintings, I can see a connection with elements from the period of Estrujenbank, in the use of advertising; and with early 1980s painting in the use of colour and the absurd.
The video, with the same title as the exhibition, "New nuclear Bio Organic", lasts 6 minutes 10 seconds. It presents the "T.V. Escorial Caos revolution" producer. It’s a mix of genres cutting across advertising, television and cinema. I shot it on a trip last summer to Italy and France, and it includes a version of the poem "No time" by Dionisio Cañas.”
Juan Ugalde

Juan Ugalde exhibits regularly at the following galleries: Soledad Lorenzo (Madrid), Joan Prats (Barcelona), Maior (Pollença), Nathalie Pariente (Paris). His work is in many leading museums and collections like La Caixa Foundation, Marcelo Botín Foundation, Coca-Cola Foundation, Artium de Vitoria, Banco de España Collection, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.