In a time when the borrowed mannerisms of John Currin and Odd Nerdrum are the rage, Salustiano García reminds us that a body of technique developed in service of nature and beauty can be more than mere, and questionable, quotation marks

The Seville based artist's first New York exhibition consists of images which aspire to be more than almost-too-beautiful portraits: they symbolize our very act of looking. Painting, old master-like, people set in a deceptively simple abstract space in presumed Renaissance attire, Salustiano addresses not "a reality" but nature. The technical perfection of the works is the pretext to seduce the viewer. Salustiano's figures watch us, pull us in, remind us of secret memories, and suggest, with their enigmatic look, that it is the glance itself, shot back and forth between the subject and the viewer that creates the work of art.