NEXUS

Conceptual Note

NEXUS lies at the core of the STRATA series, where the pictorial plane acts as a space of sedimentation and transit. Maurizio Valch projects a dense, continuous green territory, interrupted by the subtle yet violent presence of chromatic blocks and linear marks. The work explores how space retains the traces of what has occurred, abstracting the idea of path and permanence without relying on descriptive geography.

The work establishes a direct tension between the static immensity of the green background and the drift of the small red structures that seem to anchor themselves or float upon thin horizontal incised lines. These incised lines, crossing the canvas from edge to edge, do not act as mere embellishments, but as scars or pathways guiding the passage of memory. The underlying question revolves around direction and root: are these blocks starting points, necessary pauses, or the remnants of a structure fragmented over time?

In the organization of these masses and paths, there is a dialogue with Paul Klee’s sensitivity in the arrangement of signs and elemental geometries acting as units of scale within space. However, unlike Klee’s rhythmic lightness, Valch endows his blocks with a physical gravity and a rough materiality that brings them closer to Antoni Tàpies's walls, where the support itself becomes a skin exposed to wear and actual incision.

Visually, the intense emerald green field unifies the composition, serving as a support for three horizontal levels of white incised lines that tremble with the imperfection of the human pulse. The crimson and blue color blocks add a thermal and textural counterpoint, projecting dark shadows downward that suggest weight and an almost architectural depth. It is the imperfect contour of these forms and the scraping of their surfaces that reveal the physical history of their construction.

I look at these shapes and realize that I am not seeking to represent an external geography, but the traces of a movement occurring within. These red blocks are my own convictions, structures that sometimes weigh on me and hold me up, placed upon lines whose destination I do not know but which I needed to draw. It is an attempt to record that something has passed through here, to find a minimal order in the midst of a silence that needs no justification in words.