AUTOBIOGRAPHY INTO PICTURES

WORKS FROM 1981 TO 1984 AND FROM 1998 - 1999

Jordi Rodríguez-Amat

In the period between 1981 and 1984 and later in 1998 and in 1999, I made, in the shadow of the trajectory of other lines that followed my work at the time, a series of paintings, almost all on paper and with mixed techniques, in which images, regardless of formal content, attain symbolic and autobiographical values.

The work was never an irrational action. Quite the contrary, during the whole process I was constantly considering the values that would allow me to compose the painting: balance, composition, chromaticism, contrast, even the golden ratio, among many others. So in all the work, in addition to the sensitive values that are often mentally uncontrollable, I was considering all the plastic values that would allow the work to be performed. It was thus that the set formed a chromatic, and formal autobiography of plastic relations between objects, symbology, or others that, consciously or unconsciously, turn around me. One of the principles in the realization of this series was to achieve the maximum number of formal, chromatic, or plastic elements in general, while maintaining the balance of the work.

Esther / Mixed media on paper / 50 cm x 70 cm / 1981

This work was one of the first that I painted in this series that I entitled "Autobiography in Images".

It already has all the characteristics that determined the series: a lot of images generated by personal experiences during the time it took to make it. Images appear and are composed.

Most of the works in this series were painted in what I call "mixed media" on paper. Here, the mixed technique is based on lead pencils, watercolors, gouaches, and markers, among others. Each of these techniques was used depending on the pictorial values ??I wanted to achieve.

Something I will ask of you when you look at the paintings in this series is that you do not remain passive and try not only to capture the objects that appear in them but also, above all, to see how all the objects and elements have been composed in aesthetic shapes, colors, shades, lines, etc.

Mixed media on paper / 50 cm x 65 cm / 1981

We often confuse the image with the same object. Magritte himself said: But can you fill up my pipe? No, isn't it? Therefore, if I had written down the picture: "That's a pipe," I would have lied !

In 1982, when I was creating the series of works I titled Autobiography into Images, I conjugated the form of a pipe with the question whether this was a pipe. Ironically, I played with the idea of if it's not a pipe, it might be a canary, and I put the pipe in the cage.

To know how to see a painting, one must consider that the work is not the possible representation of an image with the shape of an object. Some people falsely admire the painting for what it represents without considering the plastic values of the work. If a painting represents a landscape, the landscape is not the painting, the landscape is nothing more than all the visible features of an area of land that has served the artist to create his work. Many spectators do not conceive pure abstraction in a painting, as they look for images of objects that transport them to a reality outside the work. Abstraction is the work stripped of all figurative imagery. On my website, you can see the works I have made of a purely abstract nature. .

Mixed media on paper / 70 cm x 50 cm / 1982

These works allow the viewer's imagination to be freed and, without searching for the ideas that originally allowed the work to be created, to make his own interpretations. A long time after the work was created, I, as a simple spectator, generate a world that has nothing to do with the one that help me to create the painting. This is why that causes the work, in addition to its plasticity, to allow the viewer to create his own ideas.

Dear spectator, doesn't try to figure out the ideas that allowed me to create this painting, on the contrary, try to combine your own ideas in front of this painting with the enjoyment of the plastic values of the work. I, personally, did not confine myself to just one of these aspects when creating the picture. Obviously, at no time did I limit the process to ideas, quite the contrary, the artistic elements called plastics were the basis of the work.

Mixed media on paper / 72 cm x 50 cm / 1982

The creative act became the Joie de vivre. The images appeared through sensitive actions and were transformed by the magic of shapes and colors.

This series of works entitled Autobiography into Images was created without a priori reflection. When I started the work, I had no awareness of the final outcome, because objects became plastic forms according to the same creative process. Everything that appeared to me, either perceptually or through memory, became plastic forms, hence the name of autobiography.

Regardless of aesthetic and conceptual content, the vast majority of these works are made with watercolors, acrylics, gouaches, inks, pencils, or any other utensils that would allow the pictorial element I intended to be shaped, hence the name of mixed media.

Mixed media on paper / 70 cm x 50 cm / 1983

These works belong precisely to the time of their creation and cannot be extrapolated to any other time. The meaning that the artist gave to the work is inherent in the moment of its creation.

It must be said, however, that the viewer must make his own interpretation of the work, which may be independent of the meaning given to it by the artist. I myself become a spectator once the experiences that generated the work have been overcome.

Mixed media on paper / 38 cm x 57 cm / 1983

One of my maxims is: when creating time does not account. I spent over 120 hours doing this work. This work dates back to 1983 and was simply done with pencil. This drawing, together with the other works of the series, determines a formal autobiography of relationships between objects, symbologies and others that, consciously or unconsciously, revolved around me.

Throughout the time I was creating this work, how many and how many times have I been reflecting on the maxim of William Shakespeare:To be, or not to be.

To be, or not to be, is the opening phrase of the soliloquy by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet,

In the speech, Hamlet contemplates death and suicide, bemoaning the pain and unfairness of life but acknowledging that the alternative might be worse.

Pencil on paper / 60 cm x 45 cm / 1983

At the end of the year of 1997, I was thinking that all the possibilities from what I was doing were exhausted, both in the plastic field and in the field of aesthetic content, and which you can see on my website, although this is always relative, since the possibilities depend on the same spirit under which the artist looks at his work, I did a series of paintings under the same autobiographical spirit that I had been doing years before.

Many of the plastic contents of the work are determined by constant chromatic changes with variable modulations around the same color and by overlapping, unreal and contradictory perspective spaces, always with the constant and repetitive interaction of all elements involved in the picture.

There also are elements that are repeatedly presented in many of the works. They are a type of leitmotiv that helps, at a purely formal level, to structure everything involved in the picture.

Many times, the images lose all their real meanings and manifest themselves free from the submission of the represented object. However, it is not a simple game of shapes and colors expressed by a certain free composition, but rather the complete integration of everything that conform painting with absolute values.

Oil on wooden board / 122 cm x 81 cm / 1998

This work, made up of many figurative and formal elements at the same time, is a tribute to the Iberian.

Here, figures are combined with geometric shapes and texts related to the Iberian world.

The figurative elements are basically images taken from the Iberian world.

The whole can be considered as a kind of collage made up of figures, texts and purely geometric shapes.

Time does not count when creating a painting and here you can see how many hours it took me to create it.

For this work, I used the acrylic technique. Acrylic, like any other painting technique, requires, regardless of the surface on which it is applied and the pigments necessary to give body and color to the painting, a binder, a material known here as latex. Latex is extracted from the inside of certain plants. It has been used as a pictorial binder since the 20th century.

Tribute to the iberian / Acrylic on paper / 56 cm x 76 cm

During 1999, my artwork continued, along with other lines, with the series called Autobiography into images. I ask the viewer not to stand passively in front of these works, because if he wants to penetrate the values, both objective and plastic, that I wanted to put into the works, he must look at and reflect on those values.

It is difficult to express in words the sensitive actions I experienced when creating this work.

In this painting, you can see that the figurative elements that make it up are repeated in order to enrich the work with formal and chromatic values. However, notice how the small elements of a purely geometric character serve to structure the whole set. i

Don't just capture figurative images. The breaking of forms and constant chromatic changes are other elements involved.

The shape of the human figure, profile, is in the center of the painting and black makes it dominate over other elements of the work.The repetition of the shoulder of the chair takes gray color giving luminosity to the blue of the shoulder.

There are many other plastic reflections that can be made about this work. Try to analyze each of the elements involved.

Despite the analyzes that can be made of a work of art, it is very important that the viewer try to enjoy the work.

Acrylic on paper / 76 cm x 57 cm