De/Composition presents a selection of large-scale process-based abstract paintings made by Carlos Herraiz at SomoS Art House in Berlin during an extended 2020 artist residency, a time marked by introspection, as Berlin experienced its second Covid-19 wave. Making use of water-mixable oils, with an airy and almost three-dimensional use of color, the mixed media work is marked by a contemplative period of deep material exploration and invention.

Often complementing or replacing the hand of the artist with the signature of the elements, Herraiz invites chance by exposing his works to the forces of nature for extended periods of time; for instance, by leaving them in the sun, or immersed in the sea, or by burying them, then reclaiming them to see how the elements have intervened in the developing image.

Not just materially, but also art-historically, Herraiz is unearthing and revisiting, in this case, the bountiful traditions of Spanish Informel and American abstract expressionism, dusting them off and reframing them in a contemporary context, informed by photographic explorations of the urban environment, its weathered surfaces, and waste.

The paintings thematize the passing of time and the workings of memory. Deeply fascinated with the aesthetic and philosophical aspects of aging and decay, Herraiz states: ”Like observing a fruit in decomposition, I am interested in the biological process of how something changes, grows and degenerates, changing form and color and then disappearing. How something tangible becomes dust, void, silence, memory, oblivion, a stain, a trace that memory leaves behind.” Poetically charged and empowered by the history of their own creation and dissolution, his works remind us of the beauty and poignancy of temporality.