Marais, Paris
Ricardo Fumanal
Pressure Point
Giovanni's RoomGiovanni’s Room is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by artist Ricardo Fumanal in Paris. This is the artist’s second exhibition with the gallery, and first solo exhibition in Paris. The presentation debuts a body of new figurative oil paintings. A pressure point is one that, when stimulated, produces a sensation of pain or relief, perhaps both at the same time. This threshold between suffering and pleasure is the unstable territory inhabited by the paintings of Ricardo Fumanal, whose exacting depictions of leather gear, physical restraints, and weapons allow for violent and sensual possibilities simultaneously. Fumanal’s fine-tuned handling of hue and texture demonstrates the proficiency of a medical practitioner deeply familiar with the hidden layers and undercurrents that exist beneath surfaces. Even as light is depicted glinting off the glossy surface of black gloves or the barrel of a pistol with clinical precision, their sharp patinas dissolve into shadows stained with the purples and greens of bruises. The artist’s attentiveness to minute gradations of color and form mean that even the most subtle details of subjects like delicately rendered hands register with heightened sensitivity, their apparent vulnerability amplified as bare skin interacts with glistening metal. The unresolved tension in Fumanal’s scenes allows for the potential for them to play out in various ways, whether that is through erotic performance or actual violence. Not only is there ambiguity in the props themselves, which oscillate between fetish objects and threats, but their tightly cropped framing makes it difficult to tell what is taking place around them. A glimpse of grass reveals that the people wearing two pairs of black boots have stepped outside, but are they uniformed police officers on patrol or leather-clad cruisers? Could the hands being restrained by handcuffs appear green because they’re in a neon-lit sex club, and, if so, does that necessarily mean that someone isn’t being arrested for real? An air of menace casts even the spoon and cigarettes resting in a gleaming ashtray in a dual role, as the physical traces of a personal encounter and as possible forensic evidence, while a gun being lubricated with Vaseline, beyond straightforward innuendo, takes on a psychological charge that is as tender as it is threatening. Fumanal’s paintings seem to suggest that danger is an unavoidable part of today’s codes of masculinity, bound as they are to both homoerotic intimacy and violence. Even so, like all pressure points, they also express a deep vulnerability. The tension between pleasure and pain can only exist because of the artist’s sensitivity not only to the delicate nuances of visual phenomenon, but to the social and erotic potentials that animate objects and the people who deploy them from underneath the surface. —Alexander Schneider, writer and founder of Homocommunist, an archive of radical queer histories, aesthetics, and political and liberatory struggles — Sometimes You Forget Sometimes you forget you’re in a world of pain, The sun sets and you have permission to rest, You read, you make dinner, you stand at the window, People pass with intention you don’t understand, Your fears, concerns, responsibilities fade, You forget you are just part of a system You begin to make a plan to break out, When must passive protest become violent? I want to live, after all. When it’s the same every morning, Bursting into tears the moment you look at your phone, Plotting your strategy for a winnable fight. —James Bolton, writer and filmmaker — Ricardo Fumanal is a contemporary artist and illustrator known for his hyperrealistic work exploring the social constructions of desire, power and masculinity, through the body and its symbols. His work is characterized by the meticulous use of classical techniques such as graphite, colored pencils and oil paint, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, especially through the fetishization of the male body and its clothing. Fumanal's work is a powerful exploration of how materiality and intimacy shape contemporary visual culture, highlighting the blurred boundaries between art, the body and fetishism. Ricardo Fumanal (b. 1984 in Huesca, Spain) lives and works in Paris. Selected exhibitions include (solo) Pressure Point, Giovanni’s Room, Paris 2026, (solo) Theorem of Desire, Giovanni’s Room, Los Angeles 2025, Giovanni’s Room Group Show, Paris 2025, Still Lifes, Still Stories curated by Nicolas Dewavrin, Marion Guggenheim, Paris, France 2025, Body Symphonies curated by Nicolas Dewavrin, Marion Guggenheim, Paris, France 2024, Summer Show, Serene Gallery, El Gozo curated by Nicolas Dewavrin Sarah Succo Torres, Paris 2023, September Sur Mer, Vogel Art, Nice 2023, Something New, Something Borrowed, Serene Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland 2023, Exposition Collective Libre, 3537, Paris, France 2022, Transatlantico, Mana Contemporary, Jersey City 2021