For the 2025 edition of ART ROTTERDAM, Alzueta Gallery invites the public to our own private garden. The garden has long been a place where the natural and the constructed coexist in balance.
It is a space where the chaos of nature is ordered into contemplative forms, where time is perceived through growth and evolution, and where memory is rooted in the soil. Each artist contributes to this garden with a distinct visual language, cultivating ideas that connect us to the essential, the fleeting, and the timeless. Through painting, sculpture, and photography, this garden becomes a space for reflection on the artistic process as an act of sowing, growing, and harvesting, where forms are nourished by the memories and intimate gestures of each creator.
Sabine Finkenauer is the gardener who, through synthesis, seeks the essence of natural forms. Her work evokes the organic, repeating patterns found in nature, as though cultivating a garden of essential figures, a visual vocabulary that is both simple and harmonious, born from observing the everyday.
Rala Choi is the poet in the garden, capturing fleeting moments with his analogue lens that transport us to a space of contemplation and memory. His photographs are like ephemeral flowers, rising from the soil to offer us an intimate vision of what lies beneath the surface. Through his use of color and light, Rala invites us to pause and observe how the transient can become eternal, like a garden in full bloom.
Manolo Ballesteros is the architect of our garden, using geometric shapes and materials as structural elements that bring energy and order to this space. His abstract compositions, with rounded and monochromatic forms, resemble patterns found in nature: leaves, seeds, or petals, repeating in a constant cycle of life.
Guillem Nadal is the keeper of the earth in this garden. His works are like sediments, layers of soil that accumulate and tell stories of time and memory. Through his sculptural process, Nadal reveals the invisible forces that govern the natural world, as if his hands are tilling the land to uncover the hidden roots of the universe. His work invites us to reflect on the relationship between humanity and nature, where the act of creation is also an act of grounding oneself in the earth.
Laurent Martin LO is the sculptor of the garden. His bamboo forms weave through the garden, reflecting the harmonious interplay of tension and release. His creations invite viewers to experience the garden as a living space, where each bend and curve mirrors the organic rhythm of nature itself.
David Macho is the beekeeper of the garden. His artworks are meticulously built layer by layer, using materials, colors and forms in ways that reflect the natural beekeeper's trade with his bees. His canvases, like a beehive, are filled with diverse characters and elements that seem chaotic at first glance but are thoughtfully orchestrated to make sense and create harmony. His work captures the complexity of the world, offering a glimpse into the vibrant ecosystem that surrounds us.
This garden is a space where time slows down and the essential is revealed. A space to wander through an intimate and contemplative environment, where the artists' works bloom and intertwine, weaving a narrative about the material, the immaterial, and the deeply human. Like a garden, this space nurtures growth, transformation, and reflection, connecting both the organic and the geometric, the fleeting and the timeless.