Written by Adrián Navarro, 2007
Painting, as an expression of life, is organic and expansive by nature. It not only reflects life, but it is also imbued with it. It has its own laws of internal transformation, thus, it is autonomous and self-referencing.
I consider the most relevant aspect of painting to be its capacity for metamorphosis through successive stages until it attains a dramatic tone. The painting emerges through this phase, marking its territory, shouting: “Here I am!” Such processes appear natural and visible in my work, one initial pulsation leading me to another, generating a visual melody that is in constant evolution.
As with dance, painting can also be sensual. The painter must learn to free his body and enjoy its movements. It’s all about painting without losing balance, keeping to the rhythm and being natural. My shifting from that dance to the canvas accentuates the corporeal dream which is derived from my figures. Maybe there is a hidden desire for an invisible hand to traverse the canvas, embrace those figures and really free them. If we look carefully, the gestural freedom which the figures in my paintings display remains as deceptive as any illusion.
The paradox in which human beings are immersed is universal. On the one hand, man tries to free himself, evolve to achieve some self-control over his life, but, on the other hand, he has no option other than to accept the irrevocable: his existential ties. The figures in my canvases represent this paradox. They are trapped in virtual space, eternally confined within certain limits from which they can only break free through the retina of the observer. This struggle to emerge on the outside whilst contorting, suspended in space, becomes a metaphor for us, trapped in an invisible web. As a result, despite producing an apparently organic and sensual painting, and maintaining an intimate relation with the painting, I like to take a step back and cautiously establish a certain distance – leaving the canvas and observing that sensation of domesticated freedom which emerges from my paintings.
The final outcome is that these paintings could be described by some observers as abstract and by others as figurative. I do not establish differences, for me everything is the same. My objective is to express a point of view that swings as much towards the concrete as towards the infinite.
Spaces