Barrio Escalante, San José

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Ciudad, by Carlos Tapia. A colossal crimson arc cuts across the lower half of the canvas, functioning simultaneously as a viaduct, a wall, and an artificial horizon.
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Carlos Tapia

Ciudad

Year
2022
Technique
Acrylic/Canvas
Dimensions
120 × 120 cm
Status
Available
Palette
carmine red, cerulean blue, solar yellow, violet, lavender
Brushwork
Smooth planes of pure color bounded by thick, uniform black outlines.

Curatorial analysis

A colossal crimson arc cuts across the lower half of the canvas, functioning simultaneously as a viaduct, a wall, and an artificial horizon. From its curved back, pillars striped in violet and pale yellow emerge, vertical structures that anchor the composition's visual weight before the gaze ascends toward a city that defies any constructive logic. Tapia establishes here a space where architecture behaves as a living, feverish, and perpetually mutating organism.

Above this foundation, the city unfolds into a procession of spires, neoclassical domes, anthropomorphic totems, and geometric towers competing for airspace. A solitary eye keeps watch from a conical facade; a winged fish-like creature swims above a fiery sun; sinuous stems crowned with vegetation coexist with suspended polyhedra and polka-dot patterns. In contrast to the stillness and containment of the lower arc, the upper zone erupts in a rhythmic ascending movement, driven by vertical tensions seeking to pierce the cerulean blue of the sky.

The pictorial language relies on crisp demarcation, evoking graphic art or stained glass, where firm, dark contours contain fields of flat, pristine acrylic. The paint is applied with homogeneous precision, foregoing chiaroscuro to entrust three-dimensionality solely to the juxtaposition of complementary values: saturated red against limpid cyan, deep purple against vibrant yellow. This tonal purity suppresses atmospheric depth and thrusts each element into the foreground with overwhelming immediacy.

Rather than a topographical record, this landscape proposes an interior metropolis, a map where playful fantasy, heritage memory, and the electric energy of modernity converge. The large-format square scale accentuates the immersive effect of this territory, enshrining an urban vision that shuns functional grayness to celebrate itself in the excess of color.

Ciudad

More works by Carlos Tapia

153 works

Available works

View all 153 works by Carlos Tapia

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