The Petates arrived at the exact time.

My painting was following a blind alley.
The literal element was beginning to take over the painting, the figure taking over the space.
As one theme appeared, pure painting took charge.
The story stopped being suggested by the silhouette of a woman and the shadow of a dog. Now, the history was sprouting from the different tonalities, from the diverse lines, from de color on top or the color on the bottom.
The story gave in to pure painting and it was through it that it resurrected.
Nevertheless, even with all the changes that this new series implies within my painting, I see in the Petates many elements and ideas of the past.

To begin with, great obsession of fragmenting a space already existed (breaking it, cutting it, distorting it, separating it), to then reunify it as a whole, serene and firm.
Are they self-portraits of the different personages hidden under my skin?
The different pasts articulating a coherent present?

I can not think of another object that materalizes in such a perfect way the union of opposites and fragments, as the Petate does.

Another constant element would be the deepening in the different variations of painting. On one hand they are paintings full of matter. Layer over layer of color, variations of tones, warm grays, cold grays, complimentary grays. And on the other hand, the power of the ÒwashÓ. The light figure or spot; so ephemeral and at same time as solid as any cloud.

At last: the confrontation (war and coexistence, rejection and attraction) of the abstract and he figurative.

What spot is so ephemeral and immense that it does not include in itself the limits that will make it a figure?

What figure does not contain in itself the desire to be ngrossed, to lose its identity to become one note, one brushstroke and then become eternal?

The Petates are simply lines and stains that interlace, the abstract and its classical elements.

Moreover and first of all they are Petates. Ojects

Everyday objects that hide in their simplicity generations of culture and anonymous wisdom, creating and unexpected encounter between the antique and the modern, between the past and the present.

Boris Viskin
July, 2000

Photos of Petates Shows...