Image: Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon
In this solo exhibition, Munuera’s paintings explore time through the material conditions of stone, water and layered acrylic paint.
He works with heavily diluted and sometimes thick acrylic paint, building up the surface in layers that take days to dry and subtly transform as they do.
As it dries, the paint can take on forms reminiscent of geological formations, such as the surface of a piece of limestone Munuera kept in his studio while painting. What remains is a fossil-like form that emerged from something once liquid and in motion: movement has become a record, carved into matter.
At Ryoan-ji, a 15th-century Zen garden in Kyoto, water has never flowed; mounded gravel and stones take its place, what Munuera himself described as “water that is stone.” He knows the garden only from photographs and books. The Rambla de Romí near Lorca in Murcia is a dry riverbed where Munuera spent the summers of his childhood.
The works include ‘Torii Ryoanji II’, a 2026 acrylic-on-linen painting measuring 200 × 270 centimetres. ‘Silex surface III’ is a 2026 acrylic-on-linen work measuring 48 × 60 centimetres.
