Principle Gallery | 10/13-11/6 | Alexandria, VA

Hidden Places

Carlos Morago brings new interiors and street scenes to Principle Gallery in Virginia.

An infinite number of painting subjects can lie between one street corner and the next, and Spanish painter Carlos Morago is exploring as many of them as he can in his newest body of work.

Windows and windowsills, shelves with books and ledges with potted plants, brick benches, glass-paneled doors, brass door knobs, geometric light forms shining through windows and cutting out holes in faint shadows on walls…an artist must simply observe the world to find subjects at every turn. For Morago, observing is part of the joy of painting.

Biblioteca, oil on wood, 20 x 28"

He returns to Principle Gallery on October 13 with 30 new works. His last show at the gallery was in November 2021, and he is eager to come back. “On this occasion, as has been recurring in my work, I experiment with images and objects that can be the most everyday objects of the simplest [form],” the Spanish speaker says through a translator. "I am analyzing them to find the intrinsic beauty that any scene or place can have when observed with a creative vision.”

Monasterior, oil on wood, 20 x 28"

One of the works is titled Luz de Tarde, or Evening Light. In it, a window looks out to the opposite side of the street where another building, and its windows, can be seen in afternoon light. Break the painting down further, and it is a series of vertical and horizontal lines meshed together in a pleasing scene. The only diagonals are shadows made by the window’s edges. “In this work, you can see how the random loses importance—windows of the house in front, background too flat and without detail—with which it is possible to enhance what has most caught my attention of that image, which is the strong light that enters and reflects entering the room,” he says. “[It is] a room that, if not for this, would be an anodyne image at any other time of the day or with any other light.”

Callejόn de Calella, oil on wood, 20 x 24"

Taylor Chauncey, assistant director at Principle’s Alexandria, Virginia location, notes Morago’s discipline in the details. “It’s a simple fact, that Carlos Morago has mastered this concept of finding beauty in hidden places,” Chauncey says. “On one hand, he’s encouraging the viewer to find the beauty in simplicity. On the other, he’s tempting the viewer to want to know more about what’s going on beyond the composition.”