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ESTADOS SUPERPUESTOS, 2004
Pilar Giró, (Historian and art critic)

The awareness of language which came to the foreground in the last century, along with neo-Kantian theories and Nietzsche’s writings, brought with it a turnaround in linguistic theory. The single-meaning tendency came into question because of the numerous languages which were then being spoken, including those which were habitually considered marginal and placing in the forefront all those which had perhaps previously been shunned because of the hidden aspect of their intrinsic character.

It’s possible to establish a comparison in the method of the development of the discourse, independent of the language which is used. In this way painting can be interpreted hermeneutically as an intertextual space where deeper questions than mere beauty can be posed. Investigating the episteme of painting encouraged Pablo Rey to develop new dialogues within his pictorial narrative.

Estados Superpuestos is a series which responds to this need for reflection on painting, the act of painting and the will to represent the spirit of a collective consciousness. For Pablo Rey painting understood as a means in the search for the form in which to represent art, being that art is not synonymous with the picture. The graphic quality of painting, what is said and how it is said, establish a sensitive code for the interpretation of the world. The depiction of this invisibility of tangible perceptions for the spirit who is capable of tearing back the veil which shrouds the mystery of life, usually finds common ground in contemporary society.

On a formal level a parallel between Estados Superpuestos and the work of Jonathan Lasker can be established. The gestural character and the eminently subconscious nature of Lasker’s painting become a formal purity, of clear compositions resolving space and line in the classical equilibrium of geometric dialogues. Pablo Rey conceived this series as a space for reflection, for intimate dialogue with the painting, but at the same time a search for shared guidelines which allow it to be read in a multitude of ways.

After a period of breaking through limits, where, from memory, brushstrokes outline spaces that are not accessible to the canvas, he seems to show the need to again put limits on his approach. In this sense the series Estados Superpuestos can give a first impression of being a completely different piece. Instead it lets one discover that one of the paths proposed by this work of silences held in check is the desire for order.

The boundaries which Pablo Rey brings into question are various. Geometries, generally closed, which appear in the pictures, tie down and organize the lines which weave the pictorial tapestry of previous pieces. The result is a series which is interesting for the amount of information it’s capable of giving about the artist, as much for his sensitivity as for his working method.

On the one hand it reaffirms the rationality of a process which is synonymous with the present, which is to say the immediacy reflected in the premeditated transmission of an act which ends in emotional spontaneity. The objective nature of the geometry he employs doesn’t leave out the organic character in its subjective quality. In this series he brings to the foreground, answering questions similar to those that gave rise to Landscapes of New York, what should be the artist’s objective in painting. Not only what story to tell but also how to represent this story without simply relying on aesthetic considerations.

In these pieces forms are synthesized, the clean outline of the narrative seems to be searching for the truth in art without being contrived. The material integrated in the picture reappears, almost a contradiction in its own terms or perhaps as an assertion of the dual nature which governs the principle of things.

In this series many of the themes Pablo Rey has worked on in his drawings become important. Drawing is a constant element in his work and an important support in which he notes down ideas that later become developed in his pictures. We should not anyway think of them as mere sketches, but as drawings which are conceived as works of art in their own right and indispensible if we wish to get to the roots of his work.

Superimposed states invite one to resolve structures of thought. Spaces where the painting organizes and constructs itself. The line of the brushstroke takes on a constructive dimension, almost as if Pablo Rey were dissecting the painting so that all that remains is the skeleton of its morphology. A skeleton which, in its interior, is still capable of accommodating all the magic of art.