Vertical abstract painting with a large pale-blue central field, an ochre band on the left, dark-blue bands on the right, and red areas at the base, crossed by fine lines and small rectangles. — LIMEN, Maurizio Valch, EMERSIO series. Vertical abstract painting, 80 × 120 cm.

LIMEN, a vertical abstract painting by Maurizio Valch, installed on a concrete wall in a contemporary interior; the dark edge of the canvas is visible. — LIMEN presented in a contemporary interior, where the canvas depth physically extends its lateral divisions.

Close detail of LIMEN showing the canvas weave, pale-blue and pink glazes, an ochre band, and fine lines with small rectangles. — Detail of LIMEN: glazes, canvas weave, and minimal delimitations within the chromatic field.

LIMEN by Maurizio Valch, a vertical abstract painting with light blue, red, ochre, and dark blue fields, displayed in a museum gallery beside framed figurative paintings. — LIMEN by Maurizio Valch, displayed in a museum gallery; its fields of colour and minimal signs hold the appearance of a form in suspension.

LIMEN by Maurizio Valch installed laterally beside a museum corridor; the vertical painting combines a light-blue centre, an ochre band, dark-blue bands, and lower red. — LIMEN by Maurizio Valch accompanies the gallery’s circulation through colour fields, lateral divisions, and small signs of scale.

LIMEN by Maurizio Valch, a vertical abstract painting with a light-blue field, red base, and dark-blue bands, installed on the wall of a contemporary exposed-concrete corridor. — LIMEN by Maurizio Valch in a contemporary corridor: colour fields and divisions sustain an unstable threshold.

LIMEN by Maurizio Valch displayed frontally in a museum gallery, with a central light-blue field, an ochre side section, blue-black bands, and a red base. — LIMEN by Maurizio Valch, in frontal view: large colour fields and small open contours sustain a vertical composition in tension.

Side view of LIMEN by Maurizio Valch in a gallery room: a vertical painting with an ochre band, veiled pale blue centre, dark blue planes, and a red lower strip. — LIMEN by Maurizio Valch, viewed from the side in a gallery room; approaching reveals fine lines and small forms within the chromatic fields.

LIMEN by Maurizio Valch, shown in profile in a modernist corridor; pale blue, ochre, red, and dark blue fields sustain a tension of edge and distance.

LIMEN by Maurizio Valch hangs on a light wall in a warm interior, beside a group of old wooden doors and shutters. — LIMEN in an interior of reclaimed materials, where its chromatic divisions enter into dialogue with aged doors and shutters.

LIMEN by Maurizio Valch, a vertical abstract canvas in light blue, ochre, deep blue, and red, leaning at an angle against a concrete pillar. — LIMEN, 80 × 120 cm, shown leaning: the canvas depth and tilt make its physical presence visible.

Published work / EMERSIO

LIMEN

Threshold between territory and form

Medium: Acrílico y óleo sobre lienzo
Size: 31.5 × 47.2 in / 80 × 120 cm
Series: EMERSIO
Orientation: Vertical
Context studies: 12

Conceptual Note

LIMEN places emergence in a transitional space. Within EMERSIO, where forms begin to separate from the territory that sustains them, Maurizio Valch does not present an already resolved figure, but a field learning to divide itself. The Latin title refers to the threshold: not a recognisable doorway, but the uncertain condition of being between a still-active belonging and an autonomy that has only just begun to announce itself.

The work poses a quiet question: when does a boundary cease to be part of the background and acquire a presence of its own? The dark bands on the right establish a firm vertical, while the broad pale-blue centre retains an almost veiled mobility. Between these two zones, the boundaries do not establish a definitive stability; they produce friction, distance, and a slight exposure. What emerges does not detach cleanly from its origin: it retains the pressure of what contains it.

A particular affinity with Richard Diebenkorn’s territorial construction can be seen in the way planes of colour and displaced lines retain a memory of landscape without describing it. Valch, however, takes this organisation towards greater material density and sharper contrast. His small rectangular forms do not function as signs to be deciphered: they introduce fragile measures, minimal presences before expanses that exceed them.

The ochre yellow at the left edge, the intense red rising from the base, and the near-black blue along the right side narrow the space around a pale centre, worked through layers, glazes, and traces of brushwork. Fine pink, green, and dark lines cross these fields without asserting themselves as drawing. At times they seem like edges; at others, routes or incisions barely held by the surface. The vertical composition, intensified by the canvas’s physical scale, makes this passage perceptible as a bodily experience: something holds itself beside something still taking form.

I am interested in the moment when a form begins to have a place without yet becoming a closed identity. I do not want these small boundaries to explain a story; I need them to remain in relation to a larger expanse, almost exposed to the elements. To paint this threshold is to accept that appearing also entails losing a certain protection: separating is not always a conquest; sometimes it is learning to hold oneself within a new distance.