Pensamiento

A painting’s story doesn’t finish with the moment the artist paints its last brushstroke. Much to the contrary, that is the moment when the painting’s life and adventures begin. If we wrote about each of these adventures, we would realize how much truth is in that statement. I have been a witness to many stories, many reasons why people decided one day to buy a painting without an investment in mind. I will tell you one of these stories. 

It happened during my exhibition at Nova gallery in Malaga in 2001. We had unloaded the paintings from the truck and were about to start hanging them up at the gallery when a woman who has since sadly passed away, walked by us. She stopped at the sight and a particular piece caught her attention. It was a Maternity from the African series; she’s holding her dying child in her arms surrounded by other children who look more dead than alive. 

The painting, along with other similar pieces that reflect the horrors of war and the tragedy of Africa, was going to be a part of the exhibition The Theology of Expression. I meant for the works in that exhibition to be contemplated and not for sale. However, the lady asked the gallerist about the price of this piece. When he responded that the painting was not for sale, she insisted to speak to the artist. And so she did; she told me she wanted this painting because she saw her pain mirrored in it. She told me she would pay what was in her power to acquire it because she wanted to continue that dialogue between her and the suffering mother in the intimacy of her own home for as long as she shall live. 

I finally sold her the painting for the quantity she was able and willing to pay. The woman was a painter; three months after purchasing the Maternity she had an exhibition of her last works and, by the time the exhibition closed, she passed away. She was suffering from cancer and it so happened that the day she came across us unloading the paintings, she had just come from a radiotherapy session at the hospital. 

Every painting has its own life, and it is always independent from its creator. The moment the artist finishes a piece, it is no longer theirs; it acquires a life of its own and starts its own adventures. 

    

Jorge Rando, Madrid, November 2003