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20-09-2007
10 x 10 cm
Anachronic Humanist A portrait is, without any doubt, the expression of a scale of values in which the human being is set, in time and space. Its becoming subject, as a social protagonist within a history which gave or took away some eminence from him, in a rhythm defined by the religious spirit, by science or by economy, has led it on a progressive scaffolding process that has led to the present hyperassessment of his individuality, paradoxically carrying the most complete suppression of its unique and irreplaceable being, produced by its dilution into tumultous groups of individuals as unique as itself. In this diachronic transformation the portrait is, still today, on a journey that has lost its institutional character and the notoriety of its genre – the same as the rest of those techniques known as traditional – framed in a context of intellectualization of art, oscilating between the dematerialised and the spacial, thus exploring marginal routes. Still, the artistic language considered in a synchronic way, beyond its grade of mimesis and its implicit semantics, is defined in formal units capable of being valued according to plastic art guidelines. In this sense, the significant weight of the human figure, especially the face, containing looks, gestures and lines – identity key of the portrayed – does not imply, from art’s point of view, any categorical difference with any other genre. There is a way of looking that aims at seeing, consequent process of an ability that is a privilege to have. The artist functions as a mirror for the essential features of the model, especially the inner ones, which being born from the empiric get to skin level and show an interrelation with the world: the artist sees. Santiago Paulos observes his models, he exposes them to cinematographic close ups until detail becomes hyperbole, sense priorization through a clear formal emphasis. His models, generally belonging to his affective circle, are caught in the cristalization of a movement, an instant without any kind of violence, in which they seem to abandon themselves to the camera’s eye – the artist’s view inquiring into the loved ones – universe made flesh. Maybe a need to show his characters in a direct way – although fragmented when focusing on the look – getting into subject through a fast psychologic way, disregarding onerous details, so as to dispose of its complete potential in the joy of plastic creation. Paulos’s models, dictatorial individuals, exerting their power of attraction upon the artist and objectives of his creative "seeing", confront, question, urge, beg, or just tell him: silent correspondence split into plasticities. Paulos’s work represents the apology of pictorial language: texture’s sensuality, colour’s richness, brushstroke’s generosity. Painting as a means for representation, especially as a significant for a specific individual, it is probably one of the richest ways of expression, a profusely used quality by this young artist, reconciling shades that move around his work as unexpected challenges: shades of rose criss crossed with acid greens, alternating with browns and greys, blending into earthy reds, clotted in unforseeable parts of the image. There are times when the face transforms itself into a symphony in pink, bursting with light emanating from flesh itself, evanescent in its spirituality, while the same basic shade bearing almost imperceptible variations, turns into a whitish flattened mass, undefined; a more detailed study however, suggests a multitude of shades, yellow, grey and beige spread over the canvas, ostensibly saturated by the focus of a detailed close up. The present series of portraits, as usual in Paulos, confined to small and medium sizes, restricts itself to a dialectic process started with his grandmother’s portraits, closer to drawing, not so distorted and with a careful use of colour, texture and dripping, carry on with his series of extreme portraits, distorted by the violence of the characters’ agitation which shakes them – violence of the dynamic brushstroke – and ending in this present collection, summary of a new approach to drawing, texture`s reassessment and dynamism through visual thrust – élan – of the frozen movement. The texture offers the luxury of the brushstroke, as a present; the impasto produced by dense stipple, by impression of the palette knife or by brushstroke. The pictorial sintaxis moves away from the subtle and presents itself in terms that aim at the global interpretation of that complex material net unified in order to give consistency and colour to the skin until it becomes sensitive to touch. The whole is appreciated through doses of light, tending at the beginning to the chiaroscuro, more inclined to the projection of blinding lights, most of them consciously lacking of shading zones, in its present work. Santiago Paulos is a painter all’antiqua, an artist that tries to transform his world of intense beings, of violent throbbing into passionate pictorial matter, luxurious texture and rich chromatism, transforming his young and impulsive expression in refined and controlled expressive outburst that keeps the structure of the form under the incidence of the light-colour. Rounding up, exaltation of paint’s language, search for the best angle to show the character, focusing on formal passion and building the picture’s architecture, that tacitly works upon the image´s general harmony. To sum up, an artist that shows off a language strange to contemporary youngsters, but because of its hierarchical ancestry, continues it own existence undamaged, as humanly lasting as the yearning for immortality. Maria E. Yuguero |
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© 2008 Santiago Paulos - Portrait artist. Art Portrait. Oil painting portrait.
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