At valerie_traan gallery, Philip Aguirre y Otegui presents a series of new, large sculptures, alongside a number of smaller bronzes, an etch and a large textile cloth. This ensemble testifies of Aguirre's indebtedness to art history as well as of his strong social engagement vis-à-vis the human crises that mark our times.
For four decades, Philip Aguirre has been developing a consistent and richly varied oeuvre of sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, collages, assemblages and installations. Often his artistic practice originates in personal experiences or anecdotes (e.g. from travels or stays in Africa and South America, or in his hometown, Antwerp), occasionally in press photographs which made a strong impression on him. Through a largely intuitive, tactile creation process, the artist partially abandons this particular point of departure, generating images that combine a degree of autonomous beauty with a universally human, social meaning.