StatementCircuits Collection tells the story of a metamorphosis. A succession of intrinsically connected changes. From the strictly academic, to the deeply experimental, both conceptual and material. The project structures a multidisciplinary intervention (painting, sculpture, and installation), composed of four episodes, four series within the collection. This journey tells the transformation of an abstract painting produced with conventional materials, towards its hybridization between painting, sculpture and finally installation, delving into topics such as Humanism, identity, color psychology and mental health. Authors such as Eva Heller and Robert Plutchick, and their studies on the psychology of color in relation to feelings and emotions, or the studies of the Bauhaus master Johannes Itten, support the theorization of the project. Each stage of the process manages to materialize a new identity, a new message, a new visual syntax, the four series are of Circuits Collection are: Return (painting)
The series: Since 2014, Paco Dalmau has been working on the series of paintings, Return series. They are paintings with a melancholic and mysterious content, where the suggestion of shapes and the lack of definition of their elements produce sensations of longing, of searching for a higher or simply different aspiration. Evolution series (2018- current), gives this painting a second chance, a revision that directs it to adopt a new identity. With clear references to the microscopic world, the elements that make it up are more defined, and float on the surface of the painting between glazes and fragments of color. These shapes become organic and the colors overflow, exaggerated. Depth in the frontal plane is no longer produced through vanishing points, but rather becomes physical, three-dimensional. The visual syntax of the set (frontal and lateral planes) is more complex and baroque, which is built through the succession of layers, all of them different in value and saturation. The chromatic range of the original painting is respected, although its visual impact is magnified. (Small theoretical note) As a small parenthesis, I would like to say that Evolution is the series that gave rise to completing the circle that forms Circuits Collection. Certain humanist theories of Kant, where the dignity and autonomy of an individual’s will, speak of concepts such as the search to claim the right to change, the freedom to choose one’s own identity or the ability to morally self-determine, define the theoretical content of this collection. The transcription of this type of concepts into the visual language of the project led Dalmau to consider the convenience of investigating the possibility of expanding and completing this identity project. Changes always produce consequences, and emotional regulation disorders are currently one of the most evaluated psychological conditions. So, the question was: How to artistically manifest this side effect resulting from a change? The key word was overflow, in reference to the inability to contain the emotional avalanches produced by new and unknown situations. A disorder could define this identity, both physically and conceptually… and mentally. Borderline Personality Disorder. Borderline series (2024- current), It is a direct consequence of Evolution. Its first pieces are produced with waste and discards from its predecessor’s production process. The main characteristic of these works is freedom of form. They represent the break with the spatial limitations of the canvas. The paint overflows the border of the vertices of the painting, and the color traces a gradient starting from the white color of the gesso, until a great saturation of the pigment in its new limits. Revolution series (2024 – in development), completes this sequential journey of identity change, projecting an immersive installation, which will occupy the three spaces of the room, ceiling, wall and floor. The work consists of separating the materials with which the previous series are built. In this way, each element, separately, will be endowed with a specific meaning, it will represent an idea, an emotion or a sensation that, depending on its location and prominence in the final result, will provide the conceptual content that ends the journey of the original painting from Return series, the visual representation of a revolution. From the formal level, the materials used to build the predecessor works will be presented in their original form, that is, the wood to make the painting frames will be unmanipulated wood, the ground pigments will appear in their original state and color or the acrylic resins will show their unique transparency. Each of these elements will symbolize different aspects that represent a revolution: fight, rage, destruction, confusion, uncertainty, new status quo and finally new reality. Paco Dalmau. |