Statement Circuits Collection 2024.
I consider it convenient and interesting, through this artist statement, to structure in an orderly and as simple way as possible, the train of thought, the reflections, studies and creative experiments, which ultimately build “the strategic map” of the artistic project, which forms the development and evolution of my current creative work. Simplifying:
Mission: Create unique and high-quality artistic works, both conceptual and tangible, that manage to have their own, relevant and recognizable identity within current contemporary art.
Vision: From respect for academicism and artistic tradition, which provide the basis and origin of each of my works, a conceptual rupture is pursued through the experimentation of new materials and production methodologies. This tour aims to build an innovative vision of the pictorial discipline, the fusion between painting and sculpture, and the creation of large-format artistic installations.
This artistic project is called Circuits Collection, which, to date, is made up of four series:
• Return series (2014 – current).
• Evolution series (2018 – current).
• Borderline series (2024 – current).
• Revolution series (in development).
Circuits Collection:
The collection proposes and tells the story of a metamorphosis. A succession of intrinsically connected changes. From the purely formal to the deeply experimental. There are two factors that underpin the main argument of this collection: The study of color, and the regulation of emotions.
Authors such as Eva Heller and Robert Plutchick, with their studies on the psychology of color, or Johannes Itten, professor at the Bauhaus, and his teachings on the foundations and characteristics of materials, composition and color, reveal how our interaction with colors, it conditions states of mind and perceptions, both visual, spatial and social. This sensory relationship modifies our emotional activity, and consequently, determines our motivation, degree of reflection and finally decision-making in any area.
Return series (2014- ), determines the beginning of this transformation. Arranged in a linear and chronological manner, the series is made up of abstract paintings that formally navigate the heterodoxy of the medium. Its characteristics show us classical works, with soft and harmonious colors that create diffuse and deep atmospheres, through symmetrical or asymmetrical compositions, and that are concerned with the golden ratio.
In 2018, certain pieces from the Return series, after being exhibited, had not yet found their place in the world and returned to the artist’s studio. This story, which is the story of so many good paintings, was the beginning of the Evolution series.
Evolution series (2018- ), gives this painting a second chance, directs it to adopt a new identity. The colors overflow, they are exaggerated, the shapes become organic, the depth is not produced through vanishing points, but rather becomes physical, real, tangible. The old painting is renewed, reborn and ready to be revealed to the world again.
His epidermis manifests itself as… more complex, more baroque, stranger and more difficult to classify within the stipulated pictorial movements. There are references to the microscopic world, where molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles flow and float or wander between fluids and transparencies, in constant movement, manifesting and representing the living, the unknown and the new.
Currently, the development process of Evolution has accelerated. As of 2020, no former Return series paintings exist. But the concept remains the same, all the new pieces are included within Return, some remain in this series, others are directed to the transformative filter of Evolution, traveling towards the hybridization between painting and sculpture.
But during this chrysalis phase, this process generates remains. Session after session, these waste end up forming a documentary archive, which consequently creates a visual memory parallel to Evolution‘s creative process. And it is then, when the actions, decisions, and discards taken by the artist produce a new series. This series is born from the process of recycling the elements of this parallel archive, called Borderline series.
Borderline series (2024- ), wants to delve deeper into the consequences and importance of the regulatory factor of emotions on decision-making. As psychologist John M. Reeve says in his book Motivation and Emotion (2010): “Emotions function as a reading system for a person’s motivational states.”
We can conclude that emotions, by providing us with tools to understand certain motivations, are completely relevant as an initial factor in a project, such as undertaking a process of metamorphosis. But, what happens when an individual’s emotional regulatory system is not entirely well calibrated?… Borderline…
Borderline series, talks about overflow and the inability of emotional control, talks about distorted perceptions of reality or uncontrolled moments in our daily lives. The painting has the vital need to escape the established, to cross borders and explore new realities. Climbing one more step towards that break with the formal, even more so starting from a murky, residual, forgotten past… It wants to escape from the canvas, establishing itself as something undefined, different and liberating.
Revolution series (in development), painting + sculpture + installation.
Paco Dalmau.
Last update: 02-03-2024