Gijón 1963
Art is a way of investigating reality. In this artistic research, some things take part, ie the scale, the time, the personal history, so it involves a profound attention into different worlds.
I have chosen my present art work to be oil paintings of small and medium size, painted in a traditional way.
By traditional way I mean the XIX century painting, just after neoclassicism and before the avantgarde movements. Please notice that they are not appropiatonist, cynic or ironic paintings. I try to hold link with classic painting, I remember attending many years ago an exhibition of a classic Spanish painter. He was old. During the many days the show took place, he attended it, with some relatives. To this day I remember the sentiment I felt. I call it dignity.
Technically, they are made with professional-grade oil colours on professional-quality linen canvas, museum standard. Made to last.
The way these paintings are made is inspired by traditional XIX century painting. The point is not to recreate or copy that kind of art. Just using the traditional tools and ways of making a painting, to create an image that is coherent with my life, emotions and thoughts. And they are emotional paintings, because I try to depict the simbolic and emotional links that exist between the diverse elements.
By painting this art works, I not only am coherent with my personal story osr emotional life, I get a crossover work of Art, that can be disfruted by people with quite dissimilar cultural backgrounds. I am in the territory of the classic work of Art, with all the cultural referents attached to it. A pure crossover.
I sometimes think these paintings are somewhat apparently close to naive, amateur or weekend- painter Art. These types of Art in fact rely on deeply based aesthetics standards, that wer established in that period, and that probably are the foundations of our present good taste. I don’t worry about that loose thoughts, my path is clear. These are conscious paintings, and they belong to contemporary Art. Trying to revive the spirit of traditional european paintings is not the worst thing you can do, in my opinion. Respect and tribute to our antecesors used to be a proper way of getting proficiency in Art. But since the end of orthodox European painting, circa early years XX century, the general scheme of things is a bit like the financial system after Bretton Woods, no longer a root gold patron, value and price is based on the interdependency of several actors. That is the world we live in. A complicated cultural ecosystem. A lot of people grow up almost addicted to strong emotion and spectacular cultural products, provided by the media. Fast, faster. No subtlety. Forever young and enthusiastic, full of adrenalin and strong emotion, contributing to an endless economic growth.