In Urban Distortion, Goce (1994, Valencia, Spain) retraces his journeys through metropolitan cities, translating their shifting atmospheres into oil paintings that hover between documentation and dream.
His urban landscapes are depicted with such finesse that the line between photography and painting becomes almost imperceptible. Yet rather than simply imitating reality, Goce invites us into a world where the city dissolves into a dream-like landscape —at once recognizable and estranged, intimate and unsettling.
Goce’s artistic language is rooted in the classical training he received at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, where he mastered the techniques of traditional painting. These foundations remain visible in his brushwork, light study and compositional balance. But in Urban Distortion, they are set in dialogue with contemporary subjects and his own signature method of distortion, which he has been known to use in his work, whether studio or mural. With this fusion of style and technique, he bends perspective, fractures lines, and reshapes detail. This manipulation not only alters our perception of the city but also transforms the act of viewing into an exploration of memory, imagination, and place.
The medium used in his practice plays a crucial role in this process. Goce works almost exclusively on wooden panels, often cut and prepared by the artist himself. This artisanal gesture emphasizes the intention each piece receives by the artist. Only one large canvas in the exhibition diverges from this approach, executed instead on linen—a singular piece that further accentuates the tactile and conceptual tension running through the show.
By weaving together tradition and experiment, discipline and subjectivity, Goce’s Urban Distortion proposes a vision of the city that is both faithful to its forms and liberated from them.
