Background:

“In Illo Tempore” refers to a Latin phrase from the Gospels, and is similar to the English “Once upon a time…”  This general sense of being out of the mainstream suggests something eternal, which is the essence of Vicente Pascual’s approach to geometric abstraction in his acrylic and ink paintings.  Inspired by the rugged Roman walls of his birthplace, the Aragonese city of Zaragoza, Pascual creates paintings that engage the built environment.  Architectural texture and form influence Pascual’s painted surfaces and are characterized in his color palette, which brings to mind sand, earth and soil.  Pascual’s work favors centralized arrangements of extremely simple geometric forms on generally monochromatic grounds.   His paintings represent a harmonious union between rigor and freedom.

Pascual also designs large murals and other projects based on modules that may be re-arranged on a large scale by re-organizing the components in inventive ways.  He envisions his work in various spaces and configurations, such as an exhibition slated for May 2003 in a Spanish Romanesque church in Huesca, Spain.

Since his first solo exhibition at the Galería Atenas in Zaragoza in 1971, Pascual’s work has been the subject of more than 70 solo shows and has recently been surveyed in a major retrospective at the Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca.  His work is in numerous international collections including Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington; The Hispanic Society of America Museum, New York; and La Caixa, Barcelona.  Vicente Pascual has lived in Washington, D.C., since 1999.

A brochure featuring essays discussing Pascual’s work by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, GW University Professor of Islamic Studies, and Lenore Miller, director of the University Art Galleries, accompanies the exhibition.

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