THE LEGACY NARRATIVES - VOL. III

1. What is Realism? I understand that it is that vision or representation that tries to get close to what we believe is the real—the things that happen, the people we name and give characteristics to, etc.—but which, being immersed in a determined environment and interpretation, we take as natural, as real.

2. How do you decide what to paint? Sometimes it is a matter of the dynamic you are immersed in, of what you usually do; sometimes they are things, people, and situations that you encounter on the path of life and that you are discovering. Finally, there would be what I would consider challenges and mythifications that I try to achieve.

3. What is not seen in a photographic session with models for your works? In a photographic session, you see with the photographer's technique the idea of what you want to achieve in your painting; surely there are many things that are not seen and others that are found. The photographer is a hunter who sometimes does not know what he is going to hunt, and the painter is a farmer who does not know how his harvest will turn out.

4. How important is composition? If there is no composition or it is badly done, the work is not understood; it is like a sentence where we place the subject, verb, or predicate wherever we feel like it—well, there is something you see that doesn't fit. Composition is the basis for understanding what we want to say and emphasize.

5. How important is the theme? Any work, and depending on the context, can lead us to a thought. Would we pick up a book with white covers to read if we saw it displayed on a shelf? Surely out of curiosity, we would open it, but yes, we have preferences, and as spectators, we sometimes need that theme we connect with.

6. How important is the palette? It is relatively important. Our brain has the plasticity to believe or create realities; we can watch a black and white movie from the mid-20th century and immerse ourselves in the context. In art, this leads us to be able to interpret a black and white drawing as realistic. If we think that we must represent "reality" in full color, yes, we must have a thoughtful color palette, but as the limited palette of Anders Zorn, for example, teaches us, we can give that sensation with four hues.

7. How important is the play of light? Without light there is no vision, and as I already learned, tonality is more important than color for giving the sensation of volume, space, and dimensions. The color is dependent on this, and on the reflection capabilities of the different materials, of the different wavelengths that make up white light. Probably ancient painters placed greater value on light, as they were more limited and conscious of what it meant to have good light; they did not have all the artificial light sources we have now and take for granted. In all this, the painter must reflect on what light is, the points of light, its characteristics, whether it is punctual or diffuse, its color temperature. My experience in photography, drawing, and design has helped me to be conscious of light. All of this helps me to appreciate, and as I have said, to be more conscious, endowing my works with more richness.

8. What are the most complicated works to paint? That must be said by each artist, according to their knowledge, training, and risks they assume. If I stick with the word "complicated" from the question, the most complex are those with a number of characters and their composition, when working on figuration. We can also see it from the side of efficacy in the expression of some concept, objectives, or even the simplicity of the work. We know that this simplicity can help the efficiency and retention of the image in memory. Finally, we have the influence of the current cultural moment; if we believe in the alternation of classical and baroque eras, it would seem that the baroque style would imply greater difficulty, but as I said before, achieving effective simplicity can also be complicated.

9. “A painting is a poem without words,” said the poet Horace. Just as there are different literary styles, there are different pictorial styles, and that leads me to think that Horace's phrase only sticks to one. A painting can be descriptive, or informal and not have the characteristics of a poem. I would stick to the idea that a painting is a language of the relationship of forms, which we associate with concepts and images, just as with words.

10. Are works—apparently—simple, actually the most complex? As I commented before, achieving simplicity can also be complicated, because you have to stick to the essential. If, by eliminating adornment and the superfluous, modernity reaches the essential elements, for example, in the construction of a building with a shape that is a reflection of its constructive essence—columns that support the weight of the floor plans—this has come from reflection. I could give a concrete example: the Brno chair designed by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, of tubular style, seeks to economize and simplify, through industrial processes, the construction of this furniture element, which fulfills its function and at the same time we can say is beautiful.

11. Not all realistic, hyperrealistic, or photorealistic works express something, why? For me, it is about a pure contemplative attitude towards reality, which can have the same value as a whole discourse, why not? Does reality express itself, or is it only an interpretation of our mental discourse? Is silence not necessary and meaningful as a pause from any sound?

12. Is it necessary for a work to tell a story? Why? I really do not see it as necessary. In the ultimate limit, I understand that anything can be re-presented, even the most absolute vacuum, like "White on White" by Kazimir Malevich. The story is a discourse over time, and the minimum unit of that story is like an atom and its particles stopped at one moment; that instant, that minimum unit in time, exists from our position as an observer and does not need to be justified; the element exists, and the observer observes. Sometimes it seems that the artist needs to justify his work with words; it is also a comfortable way in which a certain current belittles another. The same thing happens with photorealistic painting, which some interpret as lacking interest, from the side of those who explain an empty work with a discourse that is sometimes falsely intellectual, and the reverse occurs as well—figurative artists who do not value what is not representative.

13. Can a drawing be as good as a painting? I believe we can give the same value to a drawing, of course. A one-minute musical piece with one instrument can be as moving as a symphony. I remember, years ago, some ink strokes on an antique Chinese fan that moved me; I felt as if the artist had done it masterfully at that moment, remaining there eternally—the person, the movement, the moment, the atmosphere, everything. I think I am explaining where I place the value. Art is not its economic value, nor its complexity; I see it as an experience, from my point of view as an actor in it, but I do not rule out that, for many, being in the Sistine Chapel looking at the frescoes of Michelangelo, or having a unique painting by Leonardo in a room of their villa, is what makes them feel and appreciate something.

14. What do you believe in spiritually? Does your work express it? My works are the moments materially fixed that I spend with them, from the instant I act alongside what is represented, when I take a photograph, until I am executing the painting in a concentrated manner. At all times I believe in the marvel that reality is, perceiving it, analyzing it, and I am sure that sometime, someone, in front of one of my works, will give it an interpretation.

15. What is the difference between European and Latin American Realism? Our formative bases, I even dare to say that the differences are expressed in each country. I notice that difference in the cultural history that Mexico has, for example, its symbols, its interpretation of reality, its history, the spaces it is destined for. I do not see putting all Hispanic American countries, with their differences, within the same set, although there is a certain cultural transfer from Spain to Hispanic America during the period of the Spanish kingdom and the viceroyalties. European Realism is not homogeneous either, no matter how much we are part of that so-called European continent. Although due to globalization, including cultural globalization, art is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from the origin of its creator. In Spain, the influence of the Royal Collections of painting during the Golden Age and later has weighed heavily. We also receive influence from European movements, Italian influence, we have the Impressionism of Sorolla, and more recently the realism of figures like Antonio López, with his great weight, all of which has meant that we have received varied influences, which have made the Spanish realist movement great and attractive, even for Hispanic American artists.

16. Is classical painting overshadowed by contemporary painting? Contemporary painting would not have existed without the previous ways of working. If we consider Picasso one of the hinge artists between tradition and modernity, he never separated himself from a certain classicism. Nor can we appreciate contemporary painting without the teachings of traditional painting; the tectonic fault that separates these supposed two times is unreal, perhaps created by trying to sell novelty and fashion. Ultimately, the two play with the same materials, obey the same constraints, and work with abstract elements, depending on how far and where we observe them.

17. Do you paint for pleasure, for solitude, to make a living, to transcend... why do you do it? When I was little, I took refuge in painting and drawing because of my lack of communication; now it is the way I relate to the world, on the one hand, and also isolate myself in the concentration of my work, which prevents me from being dispersed. I feel good achieving things that before doing them I don't know how they are going to be, it is as if they arose.

18. What is the difference between an artist and a painter? I would say that in the artist there is the comparison of him with a creator, a modern idea that we can change or create the world instead of adapting to it, someone who has developed a mastery compared to those who have not, and who creates something new where there was none before. On the other hand, the painter would be reduced to a simple mechanical activity, and his proposals would have less value. But who would have the capacity to discern between what is art and painting? Who would claim such a capacity? The intellectual, the master, the wise, the expert? Each one of us has our opinion within our capabilities.

19. I consider your works eternal moments of beauty; what do you think of this opinion? Beauty is not something tangible and even less eternal, but changing; it is mediated by a social ideology and by judgment and sensitivity at a particular level, but yes, my works are imbued with an idea that reality is beautiful. To see and feel is a gift in a positive sense, except when one suffers and is not in harmony with the world, and the fixation in the pictorial matter is a desire, sometimes vain, to eternalize that beauty.

20. In life as in art, nothing is perfect, but is everything perfectible? On one side, there is what is, and on the other, what we perceive and think it is, and it is in this internal world of thought where the illusion that something is perfect or not, pleasant or not, of projections, of opinions, appears. We will never reach the perfect, because otherwise everything would be still, there would be neither time nor space, and we would not think. Only the most obsessive people would tend towards that search for the most perfect.