A mix of nature and urbanity. This is what the artist from Misiones Andrés Paredes (Apostoles, 1979) seems to have experienced and rendered in his work. Last year, the artist left the direct contact with nature of his everyday life to settle down in Buenos Aires, where he lives almost all the time to work (among other things) on the pieces that form part of the exhibition “Artifice”. He moved to a workshop in the neighborhood of La Boca, and in late 2017 he set up this exhibition for the opening of Calvaresi gallery, located in the extremely “porteño” neighborhood of San Telmo.
His stay between La Boca and San Telmo seems to have influenced the work of this visual artist and graphic designer, who presents an unprecedented selection, once again with the guidance of curator Ana Martínez Quijano. In his works, he directly refers to nature, but to nature turned into an ornament.  The hall displays, in the manner of a carefully designed garden: orchid garlands, sprouts, tangled vegetation, lianas, dragonflies, cicadas and butterflies. All these elements, which are always present in Paredes creative universe, take shape in paper or mdf fretwork, with the novelty -the big leap- coming in his bronze casting pieces. Huge, totally out-of-scale butterflies hover over the center of the hall - bright, delicate and grand.
Seasonal Sprouts, a circular piece in which a pale but vital vegetation bursts in the background to grow from there. A great synthesis of nature and urbanity, similar to what many old buildings in San Telmo or La Boca depict.  These constructions, which host sprouts and even projecting trees, stand and grow among old party wall bricks or the crack of a styled balcony.

The huge pastel color fretworks inside important frames designed by Paredes form a delicate and poetic artifice.  Just like the paper fretwork textures that, in a more languorous and fantastic register, suggest shadows and backlighting.
"Andrés Paredes has managed to turn on lifeless materials. In order to cause an aesthetic experience, he set up a surrounding stage and hosted his dramatic landscape views. In order to stir emotions in the viewer, he has magnified nature’s experience, turning it into a wilder, more unspoiled and lush landscape. We can see winding, sweet colored sprouts and dragonflies and cicadas resting on curly and wild lianas," explains Martínez Quijano in the exhibition hall text.