10 YEARS. 10 ARTISTS. 10 STORIES.
Irene Pérez
DATES & LOCATION
September 2026 – October 2026
S Gallery Madrid
c/ Ferraz 78, 28008 Madrid
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Irene Pérez explores the tension between appearance and emotional instability through the human figure. Her characters, often men in suits, project control, confidence, and social success, yet the painting itself begins to unsettle that image.
Through thick layers, superimpositions, and chromatic disruptions, Pérez turns the pictorial surface into a space where fragility and conflict emerge indirectly. In the context of 10 Years. 10 Artists. 10 Stories, her work reveals what exists between what a figure shows and what painting allows us to see.
FEATURED ARTWORKS
ABOUT THE ARTIST
IRENE PÉREZ
Based in Cantabria, the artist explores abstract expressionism as a means of revealing emotions and inner states that remain hidden beneath appearances. Combining realistic figures with layered textures and powerful chromatic compositions, her work creates a tension between outward success and emotional complexity, inviting a personal dialogue between artwork and viewer.
CURATORS' COMMENTARY
Beyond Appearance
by Pablo García
Madrid, 2026
Irene Pérez and Eusebio López work through very different pictorial languages, yet both understand the image as a space in which appearance is never enough. Their works begin with recognisable forms or visual structures that, when observed more closely, reveal tensions, emotions, and meanings that do not emerge at first glance.
In Irene Pérez’s work, this tension begins with the human figure. Her characters, usually men dressed in suits, project a recognisable image of control, confidence, and success. Yet this appearance begins to destabilise through the painting itself. Impasto, overlapping layers, and chromatic alterations disrupt figurative precision and transform the surface into an emotional territory. Irene Pérez does not directly represent fragility or conflict; instead, she allows the material itself to make them visible. The true space of the work emerges between what the figure presents and what the painting reveals.
In Eusebio López’s work, the tension shifts towards abstraction. Colour, gesture, and symbol construct compositions in which rationality and emotion coexist without either prevailing over the other. His forms seem to meet, separate, and constantly reorganise themselves, generating an equilibrium that is never fully resolved. Eusebio López works precisely within these intermediate spaces, places where different personal, social, or cultural realities can come into contact without needing to fully integrate.
Both artists thus transform painting into a space where appearance ceases to be a certainty. In Irene Pérez’s work, this occurs between what the figure projects and what the material ultimately reveals. In Eusebio López’s, between the order of the composition and the emotional tension running through the image. Neither seeks to resolve these contradictions, but rather to make them visible.
In 10 Years. 10 Artists. 10 Stories., Irene Pérez and Eusebio López offer two ways of arriving at the same conclusion: the surface is never the end of an image. Sometimes, it is simply the place from which to begin looking.