Artist Jair Laiter presented a highly successful exhibition on Thursday, May 15th, titled “Topographies and Fugues” at the Gil Coronel Gallery located on Calle Agustin Melgar #9, Colonia Condesa, Mexico City.
Comprised of a dozen paintings in various formats, from monumental triptychs to canvases and small panels, the series is executed in the technique known as “tempera grasso” (oil tempera). Here, the painter seeks a reconciliation of pictorial languages, from medieval sacred art to Romanticism and abstraction.
Tempera Grasso: A Renaissance Fusion of Egg and Oil
Tempera Grasso, also known as fat tempera, is a painting technique that blends the crisp precision of traditional egg tempera with the richer, more flexible qualities of oil paint. It emerged during the Italian Renaissance, a period of intense artistic innovation, as painters sought new ways to achieve smoother transitions, deeper tones, and greater luminosity in their work.
Historical Context
- 15th Century Origins: Artists like Giovanni Bellini and Botticelli experimented with tempera grassa to bridge the gap between tempera and oil painting.
- Transition Period: It played a key role in the shift from panel painting with tempera to canvas painting with oil, especially in Italy and Flanders.
- Scientific Insight: Modern analysis has confirmed the presence of both egg and oil in Renaissance artworks, validating the use of tempera grassa even when historical documentation is sparse.
Tempera Grasso offered Renaissance artists a way to retain the fine detail and matte finish of tempera while embracing the expressive possibilities of oil. It’s a testament to their ingenuity—and a technique still admired and used by contemporary painters who value its versatility and historical charm.
Jair Laiter’s exhibition traveled to Burgh House Museum in Hampstead, London, England, where it will be on display at the Peggy Jay Gallery for three weeks (from July 16th to the 27th).
The exhibition features a series of oil and tempera grasso paintings created in the UK and Mexico City by artist Jair Laiter.
Each piece was developed using the Tempera Grasso technique, which combines the ancient egg tempera used mostly in religious art with oils, resulting in a kind of neo-sacred language.
These works are meditative recollections, memory-based depictions of cityscapes and landscapes, developed in the studio as reflective afterthoughts.
Jair Laiter is a Mexican-German artist and a graduate of the California College of the Arts. He currently lives and works between Mexico and the UK.
If you are in the UK reading this article on The San MIguel Times, we highly recommend attending this marvelous exhibition by one of the trendiest artists in Mexico today at the Burgh House Museum.
Burgh House
New End Square
London
NW3 1LT
020 7431 0144
