Tracción
Solo show by Abel García
Tracción
Solo show by Abel García
18 April - 31 May 2024
Credits
Abel García, Javier Aparicio
Goro Studio
Dossier
DownloadPainting means calming an unstoppable will to move. To begin a body of work implies facing a void that generates a kind of displacement: an oscillation that affects the understanding of oneself and of the immediate and that questions the basis of our knowledge. This void is what pushes the artist in the winding direction of how to paint -once again-, to forget what he knows and venture into inscrutable paths. When painting, as in any other labour, a methodology is deployed that will be as varied as there are painters; what differentiates painting from these other trades is that its methodology is playful and erratic. It is invented on the fly. It could be said that the painter's job is to bring something remote to the plane of what we can see and even believe we understand.
A persistent question is that of what an artist's language means; what we really mean when we say that the artist has discovered his own language. The answer should not be categorical. Language in painting resembles a kind of primordial language: it is a process that evolves along with its surroundings, with the paradoxical condition that painting can explain itself, by its own context and genealogy. Is that then what we mean when we speak of the artist's language? Is it the ability of his work to explain itself, beyond the interference of the artist himself?
The painter's intuition in relation to his own work is another fundamental element. Intuition, like language, is a process that evolves, stagnates, moves forward again and finally shines. How else can we understand that a painting always begins empty, blank, and ends up being something completely unexpected? We must distinguish intuition from genius -which is probably something innate and that grows with time-. Intuition is a permanent commitment, it sharpens with the work and becomes more astute in itself and in the face of adversity. In this body of work Abel has drawn heavily on his intuition, which with the passing of the paintings has become courage. Moving from a small format, tiny in relation to these new works, has not been a straight line. But the result (without form or knowledge of what it was going to be) has always been there, like a presentiment that becomes clearer and clearer as the stroke asks for a different type of brush and the latent image is pursued, regardless of the fact that sometimes the painting hides what was previously achieved. It is precisely this concealment that demonstrates the perseverance in the work, the full confidence in the instinct.
The work is the end of a long and not always fortunate path. To believe that the paintings we see have been the result of genius is a bit naive. What we see now is the result of that constant zigzagging movement towards the unpredictable. The painting builds itself, by layers, by accumulations, erasures, impulses and hidden errors. Many changes have taken place in Abel's painting since the last time he had a solo exhibition in this same space. Some are very evident (the format, without going any further) and others are hidden behind the different densities of the oil, leaving glimpses of those decisions as traces of a previous state. That is why Abel works with a certain insistence, adjusting and readjusting, superimposing successive layers of paint whose color planes fix shapes by themselves or by what is left of them, searching the canvas for some kind of certainty. Everything seems to lead to a greater end, that of maintaining an inertia, a machinery that directs the practice to the desired place.
In this new work, the leap goes from quantitative to qualitative. It is not easy to resolve a canvas of these dimensions when in the past, the small format was so absolute in itself. The decision to make this leap comes from the drive, from the deep and real need to investigate further, with the certainty that doing is often more fruitful than thinking.
This exhibition is a change, an advance towards a place that is neither determined nor determinant, but that must be walked. And yes, in these canvases, we see Abel's language, ever larger (metaphorically and literally) and these works are already telling for themselves, and to themselves.
A persistent question is that of what an artist's language means; what we really mean when we say that the artist has discovered his own language. The answer should not be categorical. Language in painting resembles a kind of primordial language: it is a process that evolves along with its surroundings, with the paradoxical condition that painting can explain itself, by its own context and genealogy. Is that then what we mean when we speak of the artist's language? Is it the ability of his work to explain itself, beyond the interference of the artist himself?
The painter's intuition in relation to his own work is another fundamental element. Intuition, like language, is a process that evolves, stagnates, moves forward again and finally shines. How else can we understand that a painting always begins empty, blank, and ends up being something completely unexpected? We must distinguish intuition from genius -which is probably something innate and that grows with time-. Intuition is a permanent commitment, it sharpens with the work and becomes more astute in itself and in the face of adversity. In this body of work Abel has drawn heavily on his intuition, which with the passing of the paintings has become courage. Moving from a small format, tiny in relation to these new works, has not been a straight line. But the result (without form or knowledge of what it was going to be) has always been there, like a presentiment that becomes clearer and clearer as the stroke asks for a different type of brush and the latent image is pursued, regardless of the fact that sometimes the painting hides what was previously achieved. It is precisely this concealment that demonstrates the perseverance in the work, the full confidence in the instinct.
The work is the end of a long and not always fortunate path. To believe that the paintings we see have been the result of genius is a bit naive. What we see now is the result of that constant zigzagging movement towards the unpredictable. The painting builds itself, by layers, by accumulations, erasures, impulses and hidden errors. Many changes have taken place in Abel's painting since the last time he had a solo exhibition in this same space. Some are very evident (the format, without going any further) and others are hidden behind the different densities of the oil, leaving glimpses of those decisions as traces of a previous state. That is why Abel works with a certain insistence, adjusting and readjusting, superimposing successive layers of paint whose color planes fix shapes by themselves or by what is left of them, searching the canvas for some kind of certainty. Everything seems to lead to a greater end, that of maintaining an inertia, a machinery that directs the practice to the desired place.
In this new work, the leap goes from quantitative to qualitative. It is not easy to resolve a canvas of these dimensions when in the past, the small format was so absolute in itself. The decision to make this leap comes from the drive, from the deep and real need to investigate further, with the certainty that doing is often more fruitful than thinking.
This exhibition is a change, an advance towards a place that is neither determined nor determinant, but that must be walked. And yes, in these canvases, we see Abel's language, ever larger (metaphorically and literally) and these works are already telling for themselves, and to themselves.
