Villa Magdalena is pleased to announce Cecilia De Nisco & Richard Tinkler: Field Trip, the inaugural exhibition at Villa Magdalena’s new space in Madrid, opening on June 5th. This is the first time both artists exhibit their work in Spain. This new venue, situated in Madrid de los Austrias, directly across from the city’s oldest church —the Church of San Nicolás de Bari de los Servitas — will be open to the public during regular business hours starting in May of this year.

 

Field Trip evokes a broad sense of space and a strong notion of place. It is a conceptual framework that encompasses things that are both natural and artificial; a marriage of physical and imaginary elements of all sorts. This theoretical place represents the point of departure of a relationship ridden with fantasy between two artists, Cecilia de Nisco and Richard Tinkler. Field Trip is a fiction. A visual coexistence, a contemplation of an alternate universe which materializes through two unique ways of seeing.

 

Atmosphere, shadows, light, and the repetition of patterns and textures through intense experimentation with different kinds of brushwork manifest robustly in Tinkler and De Nisco’s pictorial sensibilities. In Tinkler’s streak paintings which feature prominently throughout the exhibit, the artist renders what he considers the ‘interchangeability between figure and field’ through abstract compositions. A similar aspect resonates with the unstable magical grounds of De Nisco’s ambiguous scenes populated by strange beings; where recognizable figures or ghosts emerge from and simultaneously blend in with their respective environments.

 

Both artists reinvent naturalistic representation through nuanced approaches to subject matter. Tinkler’s oeuvre explores the subtle importance of impressionism: from imagery which addresses light and its reflective properties, to painted surfaces that consist of meticulous webs of small brushstrokes creating shimmering color gradients. The artist has mined his own autonomous visual language while paying homage to distinctive legacies of French 19th century painting. Cecilia’s mode of storytelling, grotesque and graceful at once, imbues her human subjects with a charged psychological and symbolic weight. These compositions that are “full and empty” where one can see “everything and nothing” are a palimpsest of memory, experience, and the remnants of feelings distorted by other fragments of reality. Four of the five works on view, produced as a group specifically for the exhibit, function like vignettes or a comic-strip where the viewer is ultimately witnessing parts of the same story.

 

Field Trip recalls the historical exercise of plein air, a now romantic notion which is seemingly archaic in this contemporary age.

 

Cecilia De Nisco (b. 1997, Parma, Italy) lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Recent exhibitions include her first institutional solo show in Asia, Cecilia De Nisco: What did you expect from us at TAG Art Museum (Qingdao, China) in April 2025, and her first institutional solo exhibiton in Europe Stavo cercando il tuo cuore li dentro ma ho trovato solo latte curated by Marta Papini at Fondazione Bonollo (Thiene, Italy). Recent group exhibitions have taken place at Andrew Kreps, New York, and Almine Rech, London. Upcoming exhibitions include: 360°: Why We Paint, a group exhibition in two chapters articulated between By Art Matters Museum (Hangzhou, China) and Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Prato, Italy). Cecilia De Nisco is represented by VIN VIN Vienna.

 

The subjects of De Nisco’s works are bodies in motion, frozen in a suspended moment where their intentions remain ambiguous, eternally suspended between desire and violence.

 

Richard Tinkler (b. 1975, Westminster, USA) received a BA in 1999 from the University of North Texas, and an MFA in 2003 from Hunter College, New York. His work has been shown at numerous galleries, including 56 Henry (New York, NY), Albert Merola Gallery (Provincetown, MA), LaMontagne Gallery (Boston, MA), Halsey McKay Gallery (East Hampton, NY), and Sebastian Gladstone (Los Angeles, CA). Richard Tinkler has been included in group shows at Fiebach, Minninger (Cologne, Germany) The Drawing Center (New York), Anton Kern Gallery (New York), Thaddeus Ropac (Salzburg, Austria - París, France), Canada (New York) and at the Maramotti collection (Reggio Emilia, Italy). Richard Tinkler is represented by 56 Henry, New York. Field Trip, the inaugural show at Villa Magdalena’s new space in Madrid alongside Cecilia De Nisco, will mark the first time the artist exhibits in Spain.

 

Richard Tinkler’s paintings and drawings reflect an approach that is instinctual and labor intensive. His intricately layered pieces are simultaneously rigidly structured and hallucinatory. In these paintings, the surface resembles snake skin or fish scales, composed of meticulous small brushstrokes with subtle color gradations, that evoke Impressionist painting both in form and subject matter. Reminiscent of a landscape seen through its reflection in water or a kaleidoscope, figures emerge from their environment or dissolve into it, exploring a mode of abstraction which situates itself in the interchangeability between figure and field.