“Verano”, 1996.

Summer, as its title might indicate, is part of a series comprising four works dedicated to the four seasons. The series proposes a contemporary reading on the works by the same title by Nicolas Poussin, housed at the Louvre. Further to my total interest for this painter, his four seasons constitute a masterpiece for the maturity they manifest, the liberty that they display in conception and execution, but foremost for the invaluable intertwining of stories, legends, myths and underlying approach and concepts: all which have provoked innumerable interpretations and readings. In short, the multireferentiality which leads to intellectual questioning and discussion. Only in one point is there consensus: we do not know in which order they were painted. This is the point of departure for my own four seasons: a precise order, civil, orthodox and yielding before the temporariness of the successive four seasons of 1994 and 1995. Each painting was meant to and did materialize in the appropriate season, thus programmatically and conceptually linked to the myths of the past which inform the specific conditions of these measures of time. Needless to say, these myths have become (and more so since industrial times) reduced to mere commemorative rhetoric. Summer is a work of warmth and of rest. It was begun, but not finished, in the summer of 1995 and was taken up again on June 21st of 1996. That day, after an exhibition devoted to the illness of paint, conveyed by the use of oil shellacs treated as medicinal elements. [3 (5, 7, 11) 7 (31, 37,41, 43, 47, 53, 59)], one brushstroke/dripping of oil shellac was extended over each of the five areas of the work; the second day, two; the third day, three; the fourth day, five… and so on in a primary number progression, until the 67th day of work in which 317 brushstrokes/drippings were extended in each area. If I am (or was) not mistaken, there are a total of 9524 interventions made in each of the five areas of the painting. Indeed a repetitive and tedious act, which took place in my study with the balconies open. How can repetition, distance, the aperture of space… etc. be related to painting? I recall a story of a friend for whom the sensation of summertime in Madrid was like having someone thrust cookiecrumbles in between the cells of your brain. Most probably, these days the practice of painting has something to do with braincells, food, intelligence and life, but it rubs against certain sensitive and equally unknown parts and in any case that same having to do with is an a-historical fact.

203 x 412,5 cm.
47.623 gotas de lacas de óleo sobre tableros DM.