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Confessions of a Painter

At the beginning of April, I wrote to my good friend Jose Maria Alimbau to invite him to my exhibition on the 16th of April in Barcelona. I also sent him the catalogue of my last exhibition in Malaga (October 2001). That exhibition consisted of 64 paintings and 45 drawings. I had divided it in two parts, the latter being “Theology of Expression”. In it are some of the pieces I have been working on for the past fifteen years, in which I explore pain, loneliness, hate, abandonment, torture, death… and, why not, also hope. 


    There is the Cross, but there is also Resurrection.


Some time ago, someone told me that my earlier paintings were heartbreaking but full of squealing colours that wanted to come out of the canvas screaming. He observed that lately my work was becoming softer, less aggressive, its hues more subdued. He asked me what the reason for this change in style was. I did not know how to respond in that very moment. At first I cried out against injustice, against the human tragedies we witness powerlessly. I felt helpless in the face of hunger, the tragedy of death, the infertile dialogue between trenches and weapons; in the face of those dark hollow eyes that never knew kindness and solace, of the fearful screams that shake us to the core, of that flight to nowhere in a sea of wails. 


At first, my painting was a cry. It is now a prayer. If there was ever an explanation for that change in style and expression, that would be it. 


At this point, I have reached the conclusion that the artist can only paint from what already exists. The only one who can create is God. He created everything. I dare say the painter is merely an instrument; they execute the work with the gift that God gave them to communicate through shape and colour, sometimes unaware of the root of the work’s sustenance. This is irrefutable proof that the artist’s hand is guided by this power. When painters observe their own work, they are unable to explain a single brushstroke, a red hue here or a blue tone there. In essence, the duty of the painter is to showcase his work so that a dialogue can spring up between it and the spectator. The spectator thusly becomes the protagonist along with the artwork. 


Jorge Rando, Malaga, April 2003