Fallen from the Sky IX | Óscar Seco

Starting from more globalizing —equally scathing and iconoclastic— premises, Seco's drawings assume a return to the spirit of painting, setting aside, after several years of successful coexistence, the production of dioramas, models, and videos; nevertheless, we will still be able to contemplate a couple of them. The disasters of war, the collapse of civilizations, politics, or nature's revenge remain driving obsessions in the artist's production. Between social criticism and postmodern still-life, these surreal panoramas feature ruins and colossal birds, appropriated from Baroque artists like Snyders, Claesz, or Chardin, falling or crashing like bombs into buildings. Stripped of the strong pop character of previous series, the canvases restrict the use of vivid colors to exclusively use black and white and their derived chromatic ranges. The result is photographic and documentary: stark images of disaster. The literary references in his new work refer to J.G. Ballard's cycle of apocalyptic novels and novels like "The Fatal Eggs" by the Ukrainian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, as well as H.G. Wells' "The Food of the Gods."