David Magán, Perceptual Axes

Opera Gallery Madrid

07 May - 20 June 2026

Presented at Opera Gallery Madrid, 'Perceptual Axes' marks David Magán’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Bringing together works from five key series, the exhibition traces the evolution of Magán’s practice from 2017 to the present. Across these works, he develops a rigorous yet poetic language in which structure, transparency, and light converge to produce environments that exist only fully through the viewer’s presence.

A Geometry of Perception

At the core of 'Perceptual Axes' lies a precise structural logic. The exhibition unfolds as a system of relationships—between line and plane, volume and void, light and matter. Magán employs light as a constructive element, organising space with near-Cartesian clarity. Rather than illuminating form, light generates it: shaping volumes, activating surfaces, and defining invisible axes that guide perception. What emerges is a spatial grammar where geometry is not static, but contingent on the viewer’s position.

Instability and Reflection

A central tension in Magán’s work is the instability of what we see. Drawing in part on the paradoxical logic of Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll, reflective and translucent materials disrupt visual certainty. Surfaces simultaneously reveal and conceal, while reflections fragment and multiply space. The viewer becomes implicated in the work, encountering their own image as part of a shifting perceptual field. Here, perception is not passive observation, but a self-aware and often disorienting experience.

Between Presence and Absence

Magán’s practice persistently navigates the threshold between what is visible and what is not. Through subtle manipulations of transparency, shadow, and colour, he constructs works that oscillate between presence and disappearance. Light extends beyond the object, activating surrounding architecture and dissolving boundaries between artwork and environment. Solid forms appear to dematerialise, while empty space acquires structure. This tension produces a liminal visual experience—one that resists resolution and invites sustained attention.

Atmosphere and Suspension

A sense of weightlessness permeates the exhibition. Many works appear to hover, suspended within space or gently offset from the wall, creating delicate atmospheric conditions. These configurations heighten the viewer’s awareness of balance, gravity, and spatial orientation. Light and colour unfold gradually, forming immersive fields that are at once precise and ephemeral. The resulting experience exists between the physical and the intangible, where perception becomes both sensory and affective.

Structure Revealed

Beneath this apparent immateriality lies a rigorous architectural framework. Magán’s work is grounded in systems of construction that are both precise and deliberate. By exposing or implying these underlying structures, the artist reveals the logic that supports perceptual experience. Engineering and geometry are not concealed but integrated into the work’s conceptual foundation, establishing a dialogue between what is seen and what makes seeing possible.

'Perceptual Axes' presents a practice that is at once analytical and poetic. Through the orchestration of light, material, and structure, David Magán creates environments that challenge and expand the limits of perception. The exhibition ultimately proposes a heightened mode of awareness, in which seeing becomes a form of experiencing—an evolving, spatial, and deeply personal encounter.