poetry and painting
(a project by Karel Stoop and
Bruno Galindo )


1. bio Karel Stoop


Born in 1951 in “Made en Drimmelen”, The Netherlands.
His childhood memories have been always an important source of inspiration. The smell
of the garden after a rainy day.The ice on the window glasses in winter. The sounds in
the streets. Looking to the sky: those stars that give the sensation of falling upward, and
inspire the intuition of a remote origin where to return someday.
After finishing his academic studies in 1976 he traveled to the Middle East, Marocco,
Greece, New York, Beijing, Shanghai and Istanbul.
He worked for long periods in Ibiza, southern Spain and specially
Barcelona where he met artists like Antoni Tapies, Louise Bourgois and Karel Appel.
His first exhibitions were in Huesca, Mataro, Badalona and after Barcelona, Bilbao,
New York, Amsterdam, London, Beijing, Tokyo and Shanghai.Over the years he has
made drawings and paintings on paper, mixed media and oil paintings on large canvas
and wood. Also installations and photography.
He works in his studios near Tarrega and in Amsterdam.
http://www.karelstoop.com


2. bio Bruno Galindo


Born in 1968 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a writer, journalist and Spanish
performance artist. His work revolves around the text, which he makes available to
various media -written, oral, digital, scenic or plastic-according to the nature of the
project.
Since the mid-90 he is a leading figure in the cultural journalism, which he carried out
during ten years in the Spanish newspaper El Pais , and later in numerous rotaries and
publications in Spain and Latin America. He is also author of numerous books of
poetry, fiction and journalism. As experimental creator he has worked with worldrenowned
artists, especially in the field of music: Tom Zé, Gary Lucas, Arnaldo
Antunes, Strand, Javier Corcobado ... He has performed at numerous international
festivals, and places like the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
He lives in Madrid.
http://www.brunogalindo.com


3. introduction to the project


Encouraged by the possibility of creating an experiment combining the sensibilities of
poetry and the visual arts within a concept of space and installation, Bruno Galindo and
Karel Stoop traced the outline of a possible collaboration in 2009.
The search began after the first visit of Galindo to the studio of Stoop in Barcelona. The
structures and blue of the work "Avenue of life", along with conversations about the
universe, time and dayly life led to the writing of a series of poems by Galindo.
That was the basis of collaboration. And a series of about 25 works in mixed media
were the material reflection and interpretation of the painter.
Later the research became even more profound.
Both of them came to the approach of converting both languages in elements in the
creation of a real experience based in the visual, the word, the light, the sound, the space
and the time.
To capture these areas in a common medium was chosen to interpret both as a variety of
cosmic frequencies within the same experience.
Thus arose the title, which runs from small to infinitesimal.
Thus emerged "1 / 2 1 / 4 1 / 8 3 / 8 5 / 8 7 / 8"


4. Karel Stoop talks about the project


"From the poetry of Bruno Galindo. From the work "Avenue of Life". From the first
brush strokes starting the project. From these points, something has begun to grow
without foreseeing the extension nor the final meaning. For me it was an irrational
experience with the sense of the poem, with the canvas and the paint. With the form of
the words. These shapes that escaped from my hands by accident.
As a chain of abstractions where we are not talking about 2 works, nor about 25, nor
about 2500. Theoretically it is infinite . In the practice it is until where we have arrived.
It is a movement in an uncertain direction which reveals us step by step its secrets.
However, experiencing the project in a shared way, it has added an inspirative
dimension that invites to descentre in the painting and bow the perception even more to
a cosmic opening. In that way the paintings , as well the poems, get asumed in a wider
concept/installation inwhich the space of the exhibition, the light, the sound, the
presence and even the smell have the same protagonism.


5. Bruno Galindo talks about the project

​
"More interested for the incomprehensible than for the logical, for the distortion than for
the shape, for the defocusing than for the knowable, I take the experience as the search
for a new format for the word at a time when it fades in an unedited way within the
history of communication.
The error bears the surprise, the interpretation of the other, the finding. Karel finds
unusual meanings in words, and sublimates the meanings of others.
I see the result and let the cosmic logic of its colors and lights fill a cavity in which the
words exist or fade, leaving certainty and shadows.