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LANDSCAPES OF NEW YORK (1996-1997)
Pilar Giró, (Historian and art critic)
This series was to be the beginning of a new phase in both the
life and work of Pablo Rey. From a personal point of view New York meant
the freedom in the sense of finding, thanks to the physical distance,
the solitude he both wanted and needed to enable him to take the decisions
which would be decisive in shaping his future. Finding oneself so as to
later confront painting is an act of courage and respect. Respect for
oneself and honesty towards others. Measuring oneself up to painting and
asking it what more one can contribute, to arrive at the conclusion that
only through hard work can the answers be found, is a first step towards
what will translate into pictorial maturity in one’s work.
New York was a turning point not only in Pablo Rey’s life but also
in his work. “I remember when I first moved in to my studio in Brooklyn
and began to paint, I made some pictures which were strongly influenced
by the last ones I had made in Barcelona before travelling. They immediately
seemed distant and contrived and I realized that to continue what I had
been doing until then made no sense. My world and my situation had changed
radically, one might say they had made a 180º turn, so I decided
to make a fresh start in my work and begin again from scratch out of the
new experiences of being in America”.
The factors to be taken into consideration in order to understand the
pictorial transition, how these changes were assimilated and to see how
they all participated in the end product are diverse and varied. From
the changeover from oil to acrylic for merely technical reasons which
would play a decisive part in the execution of the work, down to the incorporation
at different times and to differing degrees of the influence of American
painting in the work of Pollock, Kandinsky or De Kooning.
After abandoning figurative painting, his work went on to join in the
debate on presence in representation. The pictures became created intervals
which explored their own space within the field of painting. They uncover
a way of looking which is able to dissolve and scrutinize appearances.
In Landscapes of New York Pablo Rey primarily starts out from street images.
It stimulates him to express the world which surrounds him. In this new
series he portrays his personal vision of the different landscapes which
make up the city, landscapes of the soul, of the feelings which the great
urban spaces awaken, translated into atmospheres which incite a tangible
visual sensation. It excites him to express the reality which surrounds
him, the images of the streets, the sensations he receives. He is interested
in feeling the life force of the city, with special attention to the wall
and graffiti, although he is more interested in the idea, in the visual
concept and the attitude rather than in the formal imitation of what the
above mentioned elements represent.
It’s strange that New Yorkers should find the title Landscapes surprising,
when referring to urban areas, removed from the idea of nature. Perhaps
because of this bucolic view of landscape which entered European perception
in the 17th century, where the countryside as well as being a place where
peasants and farmers worked the land, went on to adorn the interiors of
palaces.
Situating Pablo Rey in New York transfers to modern times the image of
a dark jungle which was also a metaphor for a turning point in Dante,
substituting the foliage of the natural world for the steel, glass and
asphalt; searching for this being able to change the world. The physical
distance between New York and Barcelona, being away from his family, friends
and above all the paternal influence of his father implies building a
bridge towards personal freedom of decision. Taking on this responsibility
entails asking oneself profound questions such as who one is and which
path one has to follow. These are other reasons which emphasize the importance
of his time in the United States and hence Pablo Rey’s assertion
when saying “in New York I found myself as a painter”, and
there began his search for painting.
Obviously his previous fine art training is ever present, but the aim
of the master is to live up to painting and not just paint for the sake
of painting. For this reason Pablo Rey always remembers how hard it is,
the burden it entails, to take up a brush after Velázquez or Cézanne.
Taking on this responsibility as a painter probably leads him to confront
his cultural heritage and something like Informalism appears on the canvas.
Incorporating the material but searching for an emptiness, just the opposite
of the Informalism practised by certain Catalan artists midway through
the 20th century. It seems almost as if in his search for the hidden truth
he was willing to tear up the painting, even the canvas while trying to
find the hidden mystery.
His language expresses itself in creating from the threshold, as a meeting
space between the concepts of construction and destruction. Sometimes
one has the feeling that he is working from behind the canvas, from inside
reality, penetrating its skin, even tearing it to pieces. The act of rectifying
some existing thing through correction carries with it the idea of this
freedom at the head of the pictorial process, paying as much attention
here to the discourse as to the process. Oil entices one to soil the picture
impregnating each act of correction with paint. Painting with acrylic
prevents one from correcting the painting and as a result freeing oneself
to use other methods to realize the need to modify the space. In this
process he even uses a sanding machine on the painted surface of the canvas.
Chance, implicit in the execution of this new working method and the fact
that he was using a completely different process from painting brought
him closer to the freedom he had been looking for.
The correction of some existing thing in the search for a new reality
outlines the path found in painting. Past and present unite before the
objectives which Pablo Rey sets out for painting. That which exists moves
away from the shape of physical things, even from references to them.
Areas of consciousness emerge, consciousness understood as the true essence
of being, the truth as a presence to be found in the magic of representation.
This new reality involves building a new and autonomous picture space.
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Grape colored line. Mixed media on canvas. 51 x 43
inch. 1997
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