An ongoing artistic project blends a terraced house and a halfway venture between a gallery and an artist’s residence. The initiative, led by Jaime Pérez, formerly of the Parking Gallery in Alicante, returns with renewed energy. The new activity centers on a former cottage in Altea that inspired the project’s name and will reopen its doors next week. It will showcase a second collaboration with a promising artist from Alicante, Edward Infante, who has partnered with Pérez for the past year. The duo will present new works accompanied by Infante’s musical compositions crafted specifically for the installations.
Picture of the Future is the title of the second installation to be shown by Casa Bancal. The presentation will be intimate and staggered, with visits arranged by email requests. The Casa Bancal project emerged a year ago to accompany an artist through their creative process over a period of at least two years, supporting study, exhibitions, and participation in fairs while maintaining a long-distance approach and a flexible schedule that serves a gallery-oriented purpose.
Following the first painting exhibition in November, the second part of the series, spanning until June, is being prepared. Picture of the Future explores the timeless nature of art, with the first ten pieces revealed under Pérez’s guidance. He asks whether painting represents the future, the present, or the past, emphasizing that the artwork captures the exact moment when it receives attention. Infante’s music accompanies the pictorial process and will be performed during exhibition visits. A pianist will perform live at the opening day, though the date is yet to be determined.
Eduardo Infante explains that the new studies are being produced in a very small format, diverging from the larger works of the first show. These small-scale pieces carry significant drama, richness, and complexity, described by the artist as little jewels. Rather than focusing on a single medium, Infante has begun combining his visual art with his own music, including electronic textures and classical-infused motifs that align with the works on display.
Infante notes that the images and songs are meant to be in harmony, compact yet expansive in their own right, composing a small universe within the collection. The artist expresses excitement about this project and the new musical dimension, noting that the music accompanying the exhibition marks his first foray into composing for such a setting. The goal is for the songs to premiere alongside the pictures, creating a fresh synergy that resonates with viewers who experience the show for the first time.
The exhibition will feature approximately 60 oil paintings on canvas, with a mix of framed and unframed works, some incorporating fluorescent elements. Pérez highlights the intention to move viewers toward greater attention to detail in art. Infante adds that many paintings from centuries past can be underappreciated today, and the same can happen in reverse. The idea is that the small-scale works demand close looking, guiding spectators to notice what sometimes goes overlooked. The painting of the future, in this sense, becomes the piece that earns our focus and contemplation.
Future projects
In September, the exhibition will travel to the Centro del Carmen in Valencia as part of a scheduled circuit. Valencia is preparing for participation in another art fair organized by Lavac, the association representing local galleries, signaling a broader regional engagement for the project and its collaborators.
For Pérez, Casa Bancal’s performance this year has been notably positive. More than five hundred visitors, including students from the Altea Faculty of Fine Arts, attended the first show across several intermittent sessions. The work was also featured at a fair in 2022, where Infante’s pieces sold nearly all of the available works. The ongoing collaboration with another artist is already taking shape as a clear next step in the program described by Pérez and Infante and reflected in the evolving dialogue between painting and music. The project continues to explore how intimate scale, detailed craft, and cross-media art can captivate audiences in Canada, the United States, and beyond, inviting collectors and institutions to engage with a unique blend of visual and auditory art.