Altea Grau Vidal: Light Pressure
We are pleased to exhibit Light Pressure, showing recent works by Altea Grau Vidal (Castelló, Spain, 1985), a London-based artist and researcher.
Experimenting with materiality is at the core of Grau’s practice, testing and expanding the constraints of an established medium such as printmaking. Her ideas intertwine themselves with their formal exploration, the intangible and tangible coalesce. She draws on Spanish philosopher María Zambrano’s articulation of light as a complex actor. For the dialogue between Zambrano and Grau, light is something to be negotiated with, it undergoes processes of control through direction, filtering, veiling. But Grau’s work also evidences the agency of light itself, its interaction with the apertures and perforations created by the artist. Using photopolymer plates, Grau draws on the sensitivity of the material to explore the limits of printmaking, light and obfuscation.
Detail from Altea Grau Vidal, Light Pressure, 2026. Photo by author.
Swathes of nocturnal colour are punctuated by a wavering rhythm of brighter shades and inverse tones, Grau’s works involve a delicate balance of contrasts. Light and dark, warm and cool, in focus and blurred all exist among each other, held by the cohesion of complementary colours. The resulting images invite a mode of looking which is more akin to searching, reaching into and across the image to form a perspective. A viewer’s eyes may not easily settle on a focal point, one’s perception floats and moves among the haze and the circular forms. The absence of an immediately self-evident subject matter allows room for reflection on the formal qualities, the overlapping shapes which gently seem to vibrate and shimmer under the surface of the glass in the frame.
Detail from Altea Grau Vidal, Light Pressure, 2026. Photo by author.
Shown in our domestic setting, these prints work as delicate bursts of colour and pattern. They express their quiet rhythm, colour heightened by the range of neutral to rich coloured glazes of the handmade ceramics at Once. Light Pressure comprises six prints - Once has five editions of each, one set is framed in a neutral white stained wooden frame (37.5 cm × 46 cm). Visit the gallery to see the full extent of these limited edition prints’ colours, and purchase framed or unframed here online or in person.
Light Pressure is on view at Once Gallery from 6 May to 16 June, during regular opening hours Weds - Sat, 10am - 4pm.
Contact: alteagrau@gmail.com
Instagram: @alteagrau
Words by Lola Rushton.
