Lub-Dub, the sound of the heartbeat, the oscillating game of diastole and systole, which the heart’s ventricles transform into life through rhythm and beat, in-turn oxygenating a life-system, in this case a pictorial one. Together the words make up the essence of a living breathing organism but separate they take on entirely new meaning. Lub, lubricated, wet-like surfaces are married with Dub, rhythm and re-verb to create a series of paintings which exist to challenge and disrupt. 

 

Through his latest body of work produced in London last season, Madrid based artist Jesus Crespo examines the essence of what it is to be a living and breathing thing, both as art piece and individual, in an incredibly playful, energetic, multifaceted manner.  

 

By combining the literal interpretation of ‘Lub’, in the form vinyl resin based primer with ‘dub’ the underlying tempo and beat of a living organism, he creates the physical environment for the gestation or birth of a painting, thought or idea. With this, his work takes on a sexual and visceral nature.

 

His new notable “Lub” and “Nacar Lub” series, explores ideas of metamorphosis as both concept and process, challenging the format of painting as ‘fixed image’ by offering something else: that a painting can instead also be in a living-state. By examining fluidity through the metalinguistic properties of paint, his work offers new possibilities for what the medium of painting can convey.

 

Through this series the artist has for the first time connected to his most primal, unfiltered and unrestricted self, where the action of his painting becomes an extension of his own being, his humanity.

 

Crespo’s body of work uniquely challenges an inherent discomfort we as humans might have with the undefined, the unknown, the unrecognisable. The feeling of not quite understanding something - an unsettling feeling, and an exciting feeling.

 

What does it mean, to be living and breathing?

 

We invite you to become absorbed in the colour, the rhythm and flux of his vibrant and complex world; opening the door to a truly unique way of understanding the very medium of painting itself and its ability to both imbed and convey its message.

​

​

​

​

lub-dub 

​

Etymology:

The low-pitched, longer first heart sound forms lub. The higher-pitched, shorter second heart sound forms dub.

​

Interjection:

1. (onomatopoeia, medicine) Used to represent the normal rhythm of the heart on auscultation, comprising the first and second heart sounds.