All my writings, thoughts, and reflections on art in general, and on painting in particular, do not arise, nor do I want them to arise, from knowledge acquired through my studies and readings on art, but rather from my daily experience working in my studio... the doubts..., sometimes the feeling of helplessness..., the philosophical concept of painting... which at times leads you to theology..., the mental effort required to internalize what you are about to create.

Throughout this entire process, until the work is completed, a long journey is undertaken... canvas, brushes, tubes of paint, acquired knowledge, problems that may arise, and their resolution, always with the aim of seeking truth in art... This is why I write and bring to light, through these “reflections,” the thoughts and concepts that constantly accompany me in my work as an artist.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2000

In my painting, I seek to create a circle of harmony between brushes, colours, canvas, and myself, so that the result may be embodied in the work.

As a painter, I do not know where I will end up, but what I do know is that I will never try to complicate painting.

A painter must believe in his work, even while being aware of his shortcomings, because if he seeks truth in expression, he will never be satisfied with himself. When he finishes a painting, at that very moment, the door opens to a new challenge, a new way of expressing himself; the painter’s own impatience drives him to become a constant explorer of new forms of expression, never settling into immobility.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2000

I cannot give any message. Who am I to give messages? The message is there, in nature itself; one only has to observe it and draw from it “one’s own message”, a personal one, an individual one, the one dictated by one’s own instinct.

Painting, like beauty or ugliness, does not need to be understood; it only needs to evoke sensations.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2000

The only thing that can discourage a painter is losing a round in the struggle for creation.
If he loses the battle, he is not a painter.

A painter should not go “against nature”, since even mothers wish to show the child they have brought into the world and present them in their finest attire.

Mothers only keep from the eyes of others whatever might hurt the sensitivity of the subconscious they have created, but they are never ashamed of what they have produced, even if it is an eyesore.

Above all, a painter is a human being; and human beings always have priorities—or rather, if they do not have them, they must find them. And if he loses every round in the struggle for creation, he must devote all his energies to another endeavour in life and help to keep the machine of the Great Creator running. And during the pauses in his work, if he wants to paint, let him paint.

A painter’s work will never be mature; improvisation does not exist.

Creation is infinite, and so if we consider maturity to be the moment when the fruit is ready to be eaten... the moment when a finished and, in a certain sense, accomplished work can be presented, then we may indeed say that a work is mature. But if, on the other hand, we interpret maturity as the culmination of the work, then I believe we are mistaken, because the culmination of a painter’s work lies precisely in this: in the continuous pursuit of the Great Work. It is along this path that the painter can fulfil himself and leave the trail strewn with works of art, like milestones marking the way towards the Truth of Art.

In art, there is nothing to search for; we only have to look around us, make everything our own, and interpret it on the canvas, simply by painting it in whatever way we know how. For the greatness of painting lies precisely in that: in painting. And that alone should ennoble and satisfy the painter.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, September 2000

Does the sea breeze strike you or caress you? Does the sound of the waves deafen you, or is it music in the key of the sea? Can the sensation of a caress be painted? Can the sound of the waves be painted? Can the sensation of music be painted?

A silent sea is an incomplete sea. Sound or music? There are sensations that cannot be conveyed; feelings simply are and exist, and nothing more.

Whenever I think that I am alone with myself, deep within, above all my reflections stands the sovereign feeling, LOVE. The question can be asked again and again throughout the day, the hour, the chaos. I keep my answer locked within me. You are Love; you are my Love.

Jorge Rando, at sea, October 2000

There are times when every painter and every artist feels the need to write and convey their sensations, their inner struggle in the process of working with their brushes and their demons.

Not only circles and triangles exist; pentagons exist too.

Jorge Rando, Cologne, November 2000

... As the philosopher remained stranded in his continuous struggle to discover the why behind things, the painter passed by, returning from listening to some verses by his friend the poet, to which the musician had already given his finest melody.

The painter stopped in front of the philosopher and looked at him intently, wishing to interpret in his gaze the thoughts that had drawn him away from the world.

As he was engaged in this task, the poet arrived and marvelled at the bucolic and, at the same time, strange sight of these two beings: one gazing into infinity, the other into a retina. From a distance, the musician watched them and, looking at his fingers, wished to take part in the scene by setting music to this encounter that was going nowhere.

The painter wondered what answer so troubled the philosopher that he could stare into infinity for hours, unaware that they were the very same hours he himself had spent filling his retina with the entire imagined story. The poet, who had now become part of the scene, filled it with dithyrambs. The musician, for his part, was already filling sheets of music.

At a moment in that time, which never stops because it comes and goes, the philosopher, feeling himself being watched, turned to the painter and confessed his doubts. He could find no answer to his questions about the interpretation of a masterpiece which, despite observing and analysing it, he could not understand. He could not comprehend how the painter had managed to capture something that, although he could see it, he did not know how to interpret... On the other hand... it was clear.

The painter replied that he would never discover the why behind that work of art, because not even the artist who created it had ever known. He also told him that a work of art should not be analysed, but felt; that one must make it one’s own, commune with it, and allow it to explain itself. He told him that, for a moment, he had to stop being a philosopher and become the last pupil in the class, so that, stripped of all wisdom, he might assimilate the Truth of art—the Truth that comes from within the artist and can only be perceived from within.

After a period of silence between them, the painter continued, telling him that poets are the ones who truly reach the interior of a work of art. They are the ones who break through its outer coverings and enter into the depths of those volumes and forms, whose strange brushstrokes sometimes remain inexplicable even to the painter who created them. It is the poet who casts his soul into those colours in search of the soul of that work, already completed and newly born, longing to make itself known.

The philosopher once again asked the painter whether, then, it was only the poet who was capable of interpreting a work of art. The painter replied that... it is not the poet, but the poet’s soul that the great majority of human beings carry within them, and which we must set free so that it may express itself when contemplating a work of art.

The musician was listening to this conversation with great interest. At a certain moment, the painter, once again addressing the philosopher and pointing towards the musician, told him that he too could interpret a painting through his music, turning colours into notes and nuances into allegro or andante. Only art can judge art. Only the soul can understand the soul.

When the artist manages to stand naked before the canvas and offer himself as one more instrument in the process of creation, only then will he be able to recreate a work that can truly be called a work of art.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, December 2000

Faced with what is happening every day in our world, in this time we have been given to live and witness, we cannot simply remain spectators, astonished, condemning, and carrying on with our lives.

We have to do something. As human beings who share this planet with all the other beings that inhabit it, who have the same right as we do to experience both joy and suffering here, we must not stand by passively as life is destroyed, as massacres take place, as every kind of right is violated, as all manner of torture is inflicted, and as abuses of every kind are committed. It is not enough to say NO; we must participate actively. It is not enough to condemn; we must collectively fight against all injustice and horror.

What does the painter do in the face of this panorama? He does what other human beings do: either he attends the “great spectacle of the world” as just another more or less impassive spectator, or he stops, looks at it, takes it in, and captures it on the canvas as a way of rebelling against all these crimes, against humanity, and against all the injustices that surround us and strangle us in the face of our helplessness.

That is why we must make the canvas scream, so that through our brushstrokes, colours, and forms we can express what we feel and present it to the whole world in all its cruelty and nakedness, and be able to cry out: LOOK! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Is this what we want? LET’S DO SOMETHING!

Jorge Rando, Paris, June 2001

What style do you paint in? This is a question many people ask you the first time they talk to you about painting and your work.

The answer: a painter should paint as they have “learned” to paint. And I say “learned” because, “in the case of the self-taught artist,” they are both teacher and student; and in the case of the academically trained artist, they may be “taught,” but it is they, and they alone, who must learn.

And continuing along the same line, what style? Different styles have been pulled out of thin air precisely by people who, for the most part, do not paint, but who do want to pigeonhole everything they see and organise it according to their own criteria, into movements and styles. Even many painters allow themselves to be swept along with the herd of one movement or another, and label and judge themselves accordingly.

Jorge Rando, Paris, June 2001

The painter is a poet of expression. The painter should not limit himself to observing nature in all its forms and simply copying it; rather, he must express from within himself the feelings it evokes in him, and give his instinct complete freedom to express the sensations he receives and, at the same time, wishes to convey. That is why I believe that a poet is the person best suited to critique a work of art, because painting is poetry brought to the canvas; painting is a feeling and, “as such”, it must be looked at and analysed.

The worst thing that can happen to art in general is for it to fall into the hands of... “certain critics” and “gallery owners”, because they will dictate the rules by which not only the artist, but also those who admire or view art, must abide. Allowing people with the most varied interests, and more often than not with interests unrelated to art, to speak or write “ex cathedra” about art and artists is the worst thing that can happen. Let them speak... yes. Let them give their opinion... certainly; but that is where their role ends. They should not seek to appropriate even the artist’s thoughts, claiming to know what the creator of the work intended to express and why they created it, and offering their own explanations by putting into the artist’s mouth or mind what they never even thought or considered.

What the artist conceived and sometimes captured with “divine simplicity”, they, the critics, turn into something complicated and, at times, even convoluted.

What a danger there sometimes is in placing oneself in the hands of the “experts”!

What a pity that some of these “experts” turn works of art into a commodity!

What a horror to buy art as an investment!

Desire or longing and reality merge in both the poet and the painter with such force that they become one. In this way, the work is born as a unique and distinct creation, because the reality of nature has been assimilated, digested, and reborn in new forms.

Jorge Rando, Madrid, September 2001

One does not arrive at abstraction because one is led there; rather, it is a process that takes place within the painter when painting ceases to be material and becomes something very deep, something spiritual.

When forms rise and you allow your hand to be carried along in an attempt to reach the unattainable, that work which is not material, if the painter, in making use of matter, does not allow spirituality to prevail in the work, matter remains matter and is not transformed.

To transform matter into a work of art, matter must first be transformed into something immaterial... something spiritual. Only then can the artist transform everything that surrounds us into something spiritual that we can interpret and capture on the virgin canvas, that canvas which is like a mother waiting to welcome those brushstrokes into her womb and make them her own, transforming them through colour and form into something created from the spirit, although created with matter.

To transform matter into life, to give life to colour and form; that is a desire, a dream from which no painter would ever wish to awaken; to give life to matter, so that the flower may have a scent, so that the sea wave may soak you, and so that tragedy may make you cry.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, August 2002

The painter united with his instinct.
Expression, movement, and strength.
Energetic brushstrokes.
Agile brushstrokes that do not close in on themselves, but each retain their own autonomy.
Very loose brushstrokes that create vibrant movements.
It is in the movement of the brushstroke that the rhythm of the painting can be observed.

Painting is not made to be analysed, but to be looked at. If painting could be explained, it would not be a work of art, but something else...

The painter should not paint what he sees, but what he feels.

Jorge Rando, Paris, September 2002

The painter is neither an inventor nor an acrobat performing “the most difficult feat yet”. Ultimately, he should never waste his time searching for either the impossible or “the most difficult feat yet”, simply in order to want to be original or to seek paths that no one has yet travelled, just to be the first to walk them.

The path, that wonderful and at the same time rugged path of painting, is found by the artist on the blank canvas; and that is where he must venture forth and allow himself to be carried away by the desire to create, with the freedom that comes from wholehearted surrender, using all the elements that God, the one and eternal Creator, has placed within his reach.

And let instinct and wisdom do the rest; and the painter... let him paint.

Jorge Rando, Paris, September 2002

There was a time when, when an objection was raised about a work of art and, for example, a painting was described as “beautiful”, even without saying whether it was good or bad, calling it “beautiful” simply meant that the work had pleased the viewer, who, after all, is the one who must enter into a dialogue with the work they are contemplating.

For purists and those who delved into the ultimate meaning of words, “beautiful” was troublesome; they wanted to hear that the work was good or bad, but never that it was beautiful or ugly. Now, in the present century, with so many analyses and analysts, and especially when there is a need to explain the fifth leg of the cat, the “most difficult feat yet”, there is an attempt to remove art from universal understanding and confine it within a kind of collectivism, always detrimental to the evaluation of art, which must be entirely personal and, at the same time, universal, without being subject to rules dictated by fashions or by what is currently in vogue in art.

Art, and painting in particular, must once again become an expression of humanity and nature within an environment that the artist can find only within himself. The painter must not remain on the surface. One can paint a very beautiful covering, but it will still be the covering of the instrument that lies within; and that is what the artist must capture: the interior... and bring it to light. Forms are infinite; therefore, forms of expression are infinite as well.

The painter cannot be satisfied simply because his work is well composed, the planes successfully achieved, and academic rules followed to perfection. That is merely the outer covering of the work of art, which must develop by making its way through all these elements; and if they imprison the work, they must be discarded and the work stripped bare, allowing it to be born from the artist’s soul and instinct, so that he does not unknowingly become a craftsman of painting.

Jorge Rando, Dublin, September 2002

As the years go by and I mature as a painter, I become increasingly convinced that the only thing that should matter to a painter is painting, always giving priority to the substance and, perhaps, even forgetting about form to some extent.

In a painter, inspiration is nothing more than a state of mind which, as a human being, is influenced by everything that surrounds him and by everything with which he chooses to surround himself, whether material or spiritual. Everything influences the artist’s work: pleasure or pain, beauty or ugliness... although there comes a moment when ugliness becomes beauty and pain becomes love.

To capture all of this on the canvas is what the painter does from within himself, without being the master of the result, because once the work has been created, it ceases to belong to him and acquires a soul and a life of its own, so that it can communicate with all those who wish to begin a dialogue with it.

A work of art is not some fashionable product, something that is “in vogue”... “the current trend”... Art is something more; it is something else. And that is why, as a painter, I have always refused—and if at any point an institution, museum, gallery, etc. did not know my work and wished to see it, I refused, I insist, to send photographs of my paintings, because then they would have the case, but not the soul that inhabits the painting alone.

A work of art must be contemplated in all its reality, not through its outer covering; and if there is no time to see it because other priorities come first, then leave it for a better moment... or for eternity.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, October 2002

The movement of colour allows you to discover what is hidden. Colour should not be a wall between the canvas and the painter; on the contrary, it must become a mulberry leaf that feeds the silkworm, which is the embryo of the unknown and will become beauty through the artist’s brushes.

The art of painting is the art of loving; without love, sublime feelings cannot exist, and these are what ultimately shape the masterpiece every painter would like to create, even knowing that such a work does not exist. What does exist is the true path towards reaching that work, as distant as it is impossible to achieve, because with every painting the painter discovers another hidden chamber containing new, unknown embryos that are born and await someone who will transform them into beauty—the beauty that can only come from the painter’s soul, as he attempts to portray its reflection and, like a multifaceted mirror, present his sensations before everything that surrounds him, which he seeks to capture from within and then bring out into the world.

Everything that is intrinsic was once extrinsic. The soul can only love and create from what is known; once the known has been assimilated, even if it is incomprehensible, and transformed into intimate feelings, it becomes something intrinsic. In this way, through his own spiritual evolution, the artist can come as close as possible to creation, because the true and pure essence of creation—or rather, recreation—is what emerges from the artist’s soul. Through this transformation, the work of art is born, with the artist as an instrument of himself.

The Art of Painting Is the Art of Loving.

Jorge Rando, Cologne, November 2002

Many times, in conversations with other artists, I have noticed an obsession among some with trying to find a connection between the work created and the outside world. I, however, am convinced that the work must be born from within the artist, without needing to be subject to such a connection, because the Work must be intrinsic. And once it is finished, at that very moment, it should not have any connection, because if one exists, it must come from outside—from the viewer, in dialogue with oneself, as a teacher who has become a student.

The painter’s freedom of creation must be taken to the utmost extreme. At the moment of creating a work of art, every bond connecting the intrinsic with the extrinsic must be severed, so that this union between the inner and the outer neither limits nor conditions a single stroke or a single nuance of colour. Once the work that is born purely from within the artist is exhibited, it must respond to all external sensations, in that union of the spiritual and the material, in that communion that must exist between the work and the viewer, so that it becomes a fusion of love rather than one of analysis.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2003

I am a painter and I am happy reading poetry, listening to music, and observing nature; yet I am not happy when I paint. When I read, listen, or observe, I allow my thoughts and desires to roam freely, and my frustrations fade away; but when I paint, I become fully aware of my limitations and my sense of helplessness.

When I watch a herd of horses or a pack of dogs, a drove of pigs or a flock of sheep, they convey sensations to me that could never be captured by a camera, because a photograph would faithfully record a specific moment, but only that moment. Whereas, if the painter’s soul sees that drove of pigs passing by, it captures not only their physical presence and movement, but all the sensations that pigs have evoked in him throughout his life. Images pass through his mind in which pigs are the protagonists: memories such as when, as a child, he would look with admiration at the fattened pig in the countryside, which the whole family cared for in anticipation of the slaughter and the feast.

Then, as an adult, when he watched them grazing in the fields; when, on the motorway, he came across a lorry full of them on its way to the slaughterhouse; or when he entered a supermarket and, at the back, came upon the meat or cured-meat counter, seeing the hams hanging majestically from their hooks like sublime ornaments...

None of this can be captured in a single moment by a simple photograph. These are the sensations that I, as a painter, wish to capture on the canvas. The result, born of limited wisdom and instinct without limits in time, is what remains. Once the painting is finished, the painter withdraws from the work and becomes just another spectator, ready to ask the painting the same questions he would ask of another work he was observing and loving.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2003

In many of my writings, when I express my thoughts or feelings about art in general or painting in particular, I speak of love; I use this beautiful word in all its meaning and in all that it encompasses, because love is also suffering, desire, work; in short, it is life itself. Everything moves through love; that is why creation without love is merely colour without a soul.

When your gaze travels across the map of Africa and you open a window to see what is happening in that wonderful continent, your soul freezes at the sight of so much suffering, but it freezes out of love; and out of love you suffer with them, and out of love you paint those tragedies, and out of love you are overcome by those terrible headaches when you are painting those living skeletons carried by their mothers towards nowhere. Out of love you paint frantically all the horrors which, if they left you indifferent, would mean that this feeling of love did not exist within you. Sometimes, in the face of cruel wickedness, people say... “They have no feelings...” False! They do have feelings, but they have no love.

I want to strip the word love of the sentimentality of department stores, of the propaganda surrounding 14 February. Love is more than all that and, above all, it is more serious than a chocolate in a little red box.

When the artist creates from within, he creates from love; the artist’s inner self is love.

There is a popular expression used when something is done without expecting anything in return, simply for the sake of doing it: “for the love of art”. Art must be pure, and we artists must do everything in our power to preserve the purity of art intact, that purity which is born of love and which, through that same love, becomes infinite.

For everything connected with art, and not only the artist, to continue to hold this love for art, and for that feeling to be stronger than the commercialism that poisons everything today, it is the artist alone who, “for the love of art”, can begin to fight against everything that is rotting within what is known as the Art World. To a great extent, it is in the hands of good art dealers who use art without loving it and who have contaminated even good artists with the power of money. These artists allow themselves to be led along paths already marked out by those profiteers, who only want to make money at the expense of art. Fortunately, there are still those who paint “for the love of art”, as well as art dealers who work “for the love of art”.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2003

Painting, to use a popular expression, should only be analysed “after the fact”. One can speak, write, or discuss how, in a particular period, this or that was painted, and in one way or another, with the aim of fitting the evolution of painting into a narrative that stretches from “Atapuerca” to wherever humanity may be capable of reaching. But at the moment when the artist is creating their work, one should not attempt to label it already, among many other reasons because doing so is a way of restricting, however minimally, the creative process; and another important reason is that the person who labels the work neither created it nor was in the shoes of the person who did at that particular moment.

Some may wonder whether, then, when faced with a work of art, one should simply “see, hear, and remain silent”; and I would answer that nothing could be further from my thoughts. Of course we must look at the Work! Of course we must listen to anyone who wishes to speak about it! And, naturally, everyone should be free to give their own opinion; but only insofar as it has emerged from a personal dialogue with the work, and never from any other perspective.

Today, unfortunately, in the society in which we live, almost everything is driven by a commercial point of view; and what matters most, or at least what matters most to those concerned, is what sells the most. Commercialism has “almost” taken over the world of art as well; the circle of art for art’s sake is becoming increasingly smaller; and many good artists have become part of this machinery that carries them along and even puts a price on their work.

I get goosebumps when I hear a gallery owner, speaking about an established artist, say that they are preparing a “series” of one hundred large-format paintings; and one should ask, without any hesitation, whether the creation lies in the number of paintings, the format, the demand, or the genius of the gallery owner.

Jorge Rando, Madrid, March 2003

At the beginning of April, I wrote to my good friend José María Alimbau to invite him to my exhibition on 16 April in Barcelona. I also sent him the catalogue of my most recent exhibition in Málaga (October 2001). This exhibition, which comprised 64 paintings and 45 drawings, was divided into two parts. The second, “Theology of Expression”, presented part of the work I have been painting over the past fifteen years, in which, through my painting, I try to express pain, loneliness, hatred, abandonment, torture, death... and also, why not, hope.

There is the Cross, but there is also the Resurrection.

Some time ago, someone told me that, at first, my paintings were harrowing, yet full of colour—strident colours that seemed to want to break out of the painting and scream... And yet, nowadays, the colours and forms have softened; they are less aggressive and more muted. They asked me what had caused this change. At the time, I did not know how to answer.

At first, I was screaming against injustice, against the human tragedies that we witness as spectators, unable to do anything, or almost anything. It was the helplessness in the face of famine, in the disgust of death, in the sterile dialogue between the trenches and the weapons, in the dark eyes, black and lifeless eyes that never knew what it was to receive a tender, consoling gaze; in that final cry of fear that shakes the soul; in that flight towards nowhere, accompanied by the music of lamentation.

At first, my painting was a scream. Now it is a prayer. This is the only explanation I can offer, if indeed there is any explanation for this change in colour and expression.

And having reached this point, I also arrive at the conclusion that a painter can only recreate by starting from something that already exists. The only one who can create is God. He created everything. We painters can observe humanity and nature, but always starting from something that, even if only in dreams and distorted, we have seen before.

I would even dare to go further: the painter is merely an instrument, carrying out the work by putting into practice the gift God has granted him—the ability to express himself through form and colour—without knowing either how or why many of the nuances upon which the structure of the work rests come about.

This is irrefutable proof that someone has guided your hand; and when the painter looks at the finished Work as a spectator, he cannot explain why that brushstroke is there, or why that blue appears there, or that red in the background.

In short, what the painter has to do is paint and exhibit his work, sharing it with those with whom, spontaneously, a dialogue arises—one in which the viewer becomes a protagonist alongside the work.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, April 2003

Back in the 1970s, I encountered some drawings by Käthe Kollwitz for the first time. Later, I had the pleasure of seeing some of her sculptures; but it was about seven years ago that I had the joy of being able to contemplate, in Cologne and in Berlin, here in her own museum, a very significant part of her writings, sketches, drawings, and sculptures.

Contemplating and learning about her work, as well as the social and political circumstances in which it was created, together with her own personal tragedy, made me reflect once again on love in creation. Pain alone cannot create; there must be love to transform that pain into hope.

One day, based on some of her sketches, I decided to create a series of paintings which, painted by me, would contain something of her and serve as “a reminder” of Käthe Kollwitz the artist—a “memorandum”, rather than a tribute, because I believe that tributes should be paid during a person’s lifetime, while reminders are for “post mortem”.

The Crucifixion is not the end, but the beginning of eternal life.

Jorge Rando, Berlin, September 2003

When a painter considers a work finished, that is not where everything ends; on the contrary, it is when the life and journey of the painting begin. If the life story of every painting were written down, one would realise the truth of what I am saying. I have witnessed countless stories, or perhaps we could call them reasons, why someone decided one day to buy a painting, without thinking about investment or analysis, but for other, deeper reasons. I will now recount one of them.

It happened at my exhibition at the Nova Gallery in Málaga, in November 2001. We were unloading the paintings to begin hanging them when a woman (now deceased) walked past the gallery and, stopping, noticed one of them. It depicted a “mother” from the African paintings, holding her dying child, while surrounded by other children... who were not living children... they were dead... dead children who wanted to live.

This painting, owned by the painter who tells this story, together with other works expressing the horrors of war and the misery of Africa, was to be exhibited under the title “The Theology of Expression”, solely for contemplation and not for sale. However, the woman at the centre of this story asked the gallery owner for the price of the painting and, when he told her that it was not for sale, she insisted on speaking with the painter.

When she finally found me, she told me that she wanted the painting because she saw her own pain reflected in it, and that she had been able to speak with that suffering mother. She told me that she would pay whatever she could for it because she wanted to continue that dialogue in her home, in private, for as long as she lived.

I sold her the painting for whatever she was willing and able to pay. The woman was a painter herself; three months after buying the painting, she held an exhibition of her latest works and, when her exhibition ended, she died. She was suffering from cancer, and on the day she first saw the painting, she had just been discharged from hospital following a course of radiotherapy.

Every painting has a life of its own, one that is always separate from its creator, because the moment the Work is finished, it ceases to belong to the artist and, having acquired a life of its own, begins its own journey.

Jorge Rando, Madrid, November 2003

En mi exposición en Madrid, en septiembre de 2003, en la Fundación Carlos de Amberes, presentaba una antología de mis últimas creaciones y también alguna obra de años anteriores para que sirvieran de eslabón entre lo presente y lo pasado. Había en esta muestra una obra que representaba a cuatro palomas iniciando el vuelo, adentrándose en el infinito de un cielo azul, con todos los matices de azul y cielo que fui capaz de captar para que acogieran ese movimiento de paz infinita.

Una señorita... ya señora y madre se me acercó y me preguntó por el precio de ese cuadro; al presentarse la exposición en una Fundación y no en una galería, las pinturas no estaban a la venta, por lo que no supe qué decirle o a quién podía dirigirse para comprar el cuadro. Ella me comentó cuáles eran sus posibilidades económicas y la forma cómo podía pagar ese cuadro.

Al preguntarle yo qué es lo que había visto en él y porqué tanto interés en adquirirlo, ella me respondió que tenía a su madre muy enferma y quería ese cuadro para ponerlo sobre un caballete en su dormitorio (de su madre se entiende), para que pudiera contemplarlo y le pudiese transmitir la paz y sosiego que a ella le transmitía, que pudiera soñar que hay un mundo mejor que está en ese cielo que ella veía y al que se dirigían esas palomas... Le regalé el cuadro.

Jorge Rando, Madrid, noviembre 2003

Abstraction is not the final destination of the painter’s journey, but a station on a journey there and back. The artist’s restlessness and endless search for substance and form make it almost inevitable that he will arrive at abstraction. And once he reaches that point in his artistic journey, after passing through everything that his inner world and perception have to offer, he feels the need to return once more to the natural light of reality. By this, I do not mean that the abstract is unreal, but rather that the artist experiences reality through his own inner sensations, whereas the abstract is born with the work during the process of its creation.

That is why I have my doubts about the abstract painter who ends his life painting abstractly, because within every abstraction there exists, if not on the canvas, then in the painter’s mind, a realistic painting; and that reality, once assimilated by the artist and transformed within him, emerges in new forms and presents itself to the outside world with whatever variations the painter’s mind has wished to give it, or has been capable of giving it. For ultimately, it is only a transformation of reality, seen by the creator in a particular way and at a particular moment.

Every abstract painting is always born from a real idea; one cannot paint abstractly from the abstract, because abstraction is the consequence of the painter’s evolution, starting from a real foundation and personal experience. I believe that every painter will arrive at abstraction at some point in their journey and, if they do not put it onto the canvas, they will at least have it drawn in their mind; and it will be their demons that accompany them always, until they bring them out from within and give them a life of their own on a canvas.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2004

In space, it is possible to paint vertical horizons. When you separate the tree from the earth and raise it up, you place it in the most sublime of places, because it occupies a place in nothingness, which ceases to be nothingness and becomes a tree; nothingness does not exist, there is always something, because spaces are always occupied, even if only by the reflections of thought. The simple act of looking shows you that something exists. There is always something... even if it is nothingness.

Space is also occupied by nothingness.

We all have a place in space; everything has a place in space. We only have to occupy it.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, June 2004

Once the colours have been mixed, the painting is born.

Most of the time, I paint spontaneously, without knowing beforehand what the final result will be.

Painting is one of the streams that flow from the fountain of life.

The painter who needs to bring out what he carries within, and whose paintings sometimes have a brutal final result, does not always fit in with current trends.

At times, his paintings are an escape to a distant paradise; “at other times”, to a lost paradise.

The painter wants to bring real light into present-day reality. He is a painter of his time.

The brushstrokes do not close in on themselves; rather, with their own autonomy and independence, they form part of those blocks that shape the finished work.

Jorge Rando, Paris, June 2004

Sometimes I think that the creation of a work of art does not take place when the artist finishes the painting, but rather at the moment when the work encounters its viewer.

To enter fully into the interior of a work of art, one should not ask what the painter saw, but instead allow the sensations to arise without questions or answers, allowing communication to take place in a space free from analysis. There is no need to search for the reasons behind the reds or blues, or the position of objects in space—that space in which landscape, figure, movement, abstraction, colour... everything has its place.

It is very difficult for a painter to write or speak about sensations, and sometimes about sensations that arise during the creation of a work, without the artist who executes it feeling like an actor, but rather a spectator of his own creation.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, July 2004

Many times I feel the desire, which sometimes becomes a necessity, to write what I would describe as intimate thoughts about art, or simply musings on painting or on the painter’s state of mind during the process of creating a work.

These writings tend to be very intimate because, most of the time, they are confrontations between the painter and himself: about creation, about his limitations within the limitless space in which he moves, sometimes as protagonist, sometimes as an extra, and at times simply as a spectator.

Yet I enjoy sharing with the “viewers” of my paintings some of those deeply intimate moments that the artist experiences, whether in joy or suffering, during the process of creation.

I do not intend here, nor at any point, to explain my painting or the process by which my works are created; I simply wish to be another spectator of works which, although they have emerged from my brushes, have ceased to belong to me and now have a life of their own, and therefore absolute freedom to reveal themselves and to be interpreted.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, 26 July 2004

In an interview conducted by Antonio Moreno for the magazine Vida Nueva, he asked me, towards the end, referring to the tones of my latest paintings, which he considered “more muted”, whether hope had come to an end. I replied that my use of strong colours was intended to be a scream against injustice. My answer perhaps sought to draw attention to a tragedy that we have failed to stop and which continues. But I have not lost hope; the day I lose hope, I will be dead, I added.

The interview ended there, but for me it marked the beginning of a meditation on that question: the reason behind the “more muted” colours and the “perhaps” that I had been unable to answer.

But I have come to the conclusion that the strong and, at times, even strident colours of my earlier period were a cry of defiance against the injustices of the world, whereas those I use today have ceased to be a scream and have become a prayer.

That is not a scream; that is a prayer... and I continue painting... and screaming... and remaining silent... and meditating... and praying.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, May 2005

Yesterday, in my studio, during one of those moments when thought takes centre stage, I was looking at a painting and found myself reaffirming my conviction that a work must be painted from its very first brushstrokes. If you create a background and then paint over it, it may happen that the support is merely “something we have smeared paint across” before painting over it.

I remain convinced that a painting has a life of its own and, therefore, if one paints directly onto the white canvas from the very beginning—that something which serves as the support for the final work—it has a soul and, therefore, life from the outset, just as a child, when born, is a being with a life of its own, even though it has been conceived by its mother, who also has a soul.

That is why painting over paint that serves as your background helps you give life of its own to the work you are trying to create. I paint with one material over another material that has already come to life; this is what I call knowing how to erase. It is nothing more than fitting the work onto another work that supports it, even though I know that in the first work, which supports the second, the painting is not yet defined but still exists in an embryonic state.

I believe that the best support for abstraction is figuration.

The soul cannot be seen, but it gives you life. The figure, as a support, cannot be seen, but it has a soul and, consequently, life as well, which remains there underneath, covered by the abstract brushstrokes.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, October 2005

I have sometimes taken part (almost always as a listener) in conversations between artists and art critics about “painters who make a living from painting”, and the prevailing argument, which I consider mistaken, was always that the ultimate goal and, at the same time, the mark of an artist’s success is to make a living from their art. I respect this view, although I completely disagree that being able to make a living from art means becoming an Artist “with a capital A”.

A painter-artist should live “for” painting; and if, in addition, he makes a living from it, then so much the better. And if anyone wonders why I am writing these lines on the subject, I said so at the beginning; because I have often read interviews with painters who proudly repeat that from a certain point onwards... they make a living from painting, devoting themselves to it entirely. And I wonder where the freedom lies in not having to depend on making a living from it.

Why can an artist not work (as, in fact, many do), earn a living for himself and his family, and, on top of that, paint? Is there no time? There is time for everything; and there is plenty of it. Does devoting oneself entirely to art make one create better? False! Only those who are GOOD create well, whether they work or not; and those who are bad or mediocre, even if they wake up and go to bed exclusively devoted to the practice of art, will remain bad or mediocre.

So I have come to the conclusion that, just as the habit does not make the monk, mere dedication to Art does not make the artist.

The artist, as I have said on other occasions, is born; afterwards, he must discover that he is an artist and, then, learn to develop the gift he has been given, never forgetting that it is a gift, not a prize.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, Christmas 2005

Every now and then I have stopped to think about the stimulation an artist needs in order to create. Much has been written on the subject, with analyses from every possible angle, considering both the period in which certain artists lived and the way they lived; and it even came to be believed that all artists, in order to express themselves freely, had to be bohemian and live differently from their fellow human beings, as though they were a rare species within the human species. In fact, sometimes they even marginalised themselves in order to become more of an artist.

Human nature is very complex, and if an artist, for example, were schizophrenic, it would be something inherent to him, and it is even possible that during some of his episodes he might create with a force that he perhaps does not possess in his lucid moments. What he paints under that influence, however, he does because he is an artist, not because he is schizophrenic.

The belief that true creation is linked to the hardships an artist may suffer, whether misfortunes caused by illness or economic deprivation, is entirely mistaken. That stimulus born of necessity influences you, but at the same time it takes away some of that total freedom, both physical and psychological; and perhaps those needs, which at times may even have driven creation to become a refuge, also limit you, because in the subconscious there remains the desire to survive, the desire to eat, to be able to rest comfortably, not to be cold...

At such moments, the artist may take refuge in his art and create with rage, but the work will be good if the artist is good and, if the artist is mediocre, whether or not he goes hungry, the work will be mediocre.

Returning to the stimuli that can influence art and the creator, there is one supreme stimulus: love. The force of love is immense, not to say infinite, and so powerful that it enables the artist to transform even tragedy into beauty, because he experiences it with love, though it is true, also with helplessness.

Love is a sensation that comes from the deepest interior of the human being, from that inner self from which pure art must emerge: art in and of itself, art for art’s sake. That is why the triumph of the painter, the poet, the writer, the sculptor, and the musician lies in painting, writing, carving, composing; it lies in the moment of creation, without constraints, looking only fleetingly towards the past and without thinking about the future. It is then that the artist triumphs as an artist.

Once the work has been created and the creator himself can contemplate it, he has already received his reward and his success, without entering into considerations about the quality of the work and without making the comparisons to which we human beings are so prone.

How is it possible to compare a work by Velázquez with one by Monet, or Goya with Picasso? Each artist has a beginning and an end, which are his own beginning and his own end; and no one from outside can analyse something that is born from within, not even the creator himself, because the moment he considers his work finished and presents it, it ceases to be his and becomes an entity with a life of its own, which he has created precisely so that it may cease to belong to him.

It is like a mother giving birth to a child: she gives life to a being independent of her, with a life and feelings of its own, which will develop within its surroundings and continually shape its own personality.

Love, soul and personality... three sublime words that can be applied not only to the human being, but also to the work created by that being.

Love is essential to life; without love, life ceases to have meaning. We possess the soul for all eternity, but ultimately, personality is what makes us different from the rest of the human beings with whom we live, with whom we unite, whom we love and, sadly at times, whom we also despise.

A work of art is like life itself: it must be created with love, it must have a soul, and at the same time it must have a personality of its own. It must present itself to the public in its purity in order to establish that necessary communion between the work and the person who wishes to contemplate it; and that communion will only be established if the viewer approaches it predisposed to do so.

When I visit exhibitions or museums, sometimes “my soul sinks” when I see so many people looking at a painting as though they were watching the butcher on the corner weigh out a kilo of chops, or as though they were looking at a traffic light when it is red. Green, amber, red: three traffic-light colours observed merely as signals for crossing the street. That is the impression many visitors to art exhibitions give me... they move from one painting to another and all they have seen are the colours of the traffic light.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2006 (Epiphany)

Saturday, 8:30 p.m. Today is 25 November 2006; and, like every year, it is another year of the “Lord”. At last, we have arrived at Heimhuder. Cristine, as is customary for her, was waiting for us at home with open arms, ready to welcome us and carry us off into the much-needed rest. But... of course... before that, my “Pirin” had to put order into order and keep everything under her control, while I took the opportunity to browse through the “Kultur & Medien” section of the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper...

And suddenly I found myself face to face with a reproduction of a painting by the great German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, a work I already knew, entitled Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes, translated as Two Men Contemplating the Moon.

This painting by Friedrich had never particularly caught my attention... but this time, upon encountering it again on a page of a newspaper inviting its art-loving readers to visit the exhibition... and as I faced the painting once more, I understood the reason for this sudden curiosity.

I could not get to the Ausstellung quickly enough. What did I see? What did the painting tell me? ... It depicted two figures looking beyond... as far as they were capable of looking. There are two: one who looks and another who makes the first one look; both want to see. There is always one and another... and others who look, and look at everything they can and are capable of seeing.

You can look at everything, but... can you see the moon? Can you see the light? Can you see creation?

Returning to my figures (for I have already made them my own), there are two of them: two who meet, two who love each other, two who hate each other, two who travel the same path; even when one gives and the other receives, there are two; if one has to lean on the other... there are also two; there are always two.

That is why I want to enter C. D. Friedrich’s painting and become the third viewer; and tell what I see after looking through the eyes of the two and trying to see through my own.

I am now in position!

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, November 2006

Today is Tuesday, 8 May 2007; I am sailing aboard the Europa (a ship belonging to the German company Hapag-Lloyd), on which we usually travel to Hamburg. We have just left Lisbon and the sea is quite rough. After a good breakfast—not very peaceful, but certainly quite relaxed—I am reading the newspaper Die Welt, and in the culture section there is an interview in which Mrs Gardner speaks with the painter Daniel Richter, who is currently holding his largest Ausstellung at the Kunsthalle Hamburg.

Reading this interview brings back to my mind once again the theory I have so often developed concerning the explanations painters give about the form, substance, and outcome of their work. And every time I read some of these comments, I always reach the same conclusion—the one I have always defended—which is that one arrives at a work of art by looking at that creation, not by analysing it.

That is why I believe that the explanations an artist may give about his work, whether discussing the reality represented, dimensionality, or space, are superfluous; and they are superfluous because sometimes the painter wants to explain the inexplicable: existential moments which he turns (sometimes unintentionally) into essential ones, and some even lie (sometimes unintentionally) in their eagerness to provide an answer to everything.

The interviewee feels himself to be the protagonist of a work he has created, but which has now become independent of him, and therefore it alone is the protagonist.

A painting must be looked at with the eyes of a child, with that pure gaze which does not analyse, but enters into the painting and becomes part of it, without trying to possess it, without searching for anything... only in this way will beauty be discovered... without examinations.

Now I get up from my desk, kiss my love, and go for a walk.

Jorge Rando, Lisbon, May 2007

The bad weather continues, with waves and wind; we are sailing along the French coast of Brittany, at this moment opposite the fortress of Saint-Malo... and I am reminded of the Allied landings in Normandy, the corsair novels of Arturo Pérez-Reverte, or my last trip, a few years ago, with my Pirin, travelling throughout the Département of Ille-et-Vilaine, visiting the 12th-century Basilica of Saint-Sauveur, with its magnificent 19th-century portal, where Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque styles come together; not forgetting the Church of Saint-Malo (15th century), the Franciscan convent (12th century), restored in the 19th century, and our unforgettable visit to Mont Saint-Michel.

Following the thread of my two previous reflections, in which I reflect upon art and artists, I want to make it “very” clear that I am completely in favour of talking about art; indeed, I believe it is necessary to do so—to do everything necessary to ensure that art, which has been bound to humanity since its beginnings, does not lose the prominence it must always have: to help keep the flame of the spirit alive, to help us seek the divine within the human, to help us seek our soul within our body.

In this search for the union of man with his Creator... a union of love with God... the true artist is the one who expresses himself through his own means because he feels the need to do so, and NOT in order to communicate his own feelings, NOT to denounce cruelty and injustice, NOT to idealise or criminalise certain political positions, NOT to deliver his message, NOT because he has to make a living from it, BUT... because he has to do it, because he feels an inner need that drives him to express himself; and within that freedom and compelling necessity lies the path that leads him towards the human, towards being closer to the divine.

Jorge Rando, Brittany, May 2007

We have been sailing for quite a few miles since I last wrote down my impressions of interviews with artists about their work. I believe that, for both the interviewer and the interviewee, it is very difficult to ask or answer questions about art; above all, to put into words what is sometimes inexpressible, because a painting (itself) expresses itself; it does not explain itself. Consequently, it is inexplicable from the outside, although you can make it your own from within and, once it is yours, it has already expressed itself to you, with two of you now sharing in it; that is what happens to the painter when faced with his own work once it has been completed.

It is no longer the same language with which they communicated during the work in the studio, when the artist must give himself completely to the work he is creating, stripping himself of all protagonism as he paints so that the work of art may emerge freely; because if you do not let go of everything, you will never reach the “Everything”... and that is so difficult... Just imagine how difficult it is to explain it... and to understand it... and to put it into words... The language in which the artist expresses himself through his work is different from the language he uses when he tries to explain it; and these two languages run along parallel paths, so they will never meet.

I have come to the conclusion that, in an interview or a lecture, the explanation, analysis, or merit of the artist’s work should be expressed by the poet, writer, critic, or art lover. And if the artist (the painter) wants to step into the arena, let him do so—but in the ring, not from the sidelines; and if he is capable of speaking about the work he has created while forgetting his own ego, then let him do so too... although, honestly, and I speak only for myself and on my own behalf, I believe that this is very difficult. So, remaining true to my own principles, I remain silent and listen with respect... and I am grateful for those gazes, those comments, those criticisms... those silences.

(The boat is moving quite a lot, and my handwriting is dreadful... so I shall stop here for today...)

Jorge Rando, sailing, May 2007

I am leafing through, and glancing over, a magazine from 2007 in which a special feature is devoted to the city of HAMBURG. The photographs accompanying the articles are very good and particularly successful in their use of colour; and contemplating them transports me once again to reflecting on colour and painting, on line and form, and brings me to the question I ask myself time and time again: drawing, yes or drawing, no?

In asking myself this question, I am neither thinking about nor questioning the importance of drawing, which I consider essential “per se” for a painter; rather, I am reflecting on the importance and independence of drawing in art. Drawing is, in itself, art, just as sculpture or poetry is.

And now I return to my question to myself: drawing, yes or drawing, no? In analysing this dilemma, I am referring to whether the painting that is to be created on the blank canvas should first be drawn as a guide for the artist. Some say that drawing helps to compose the work that is about to be created, while others offer various explanations to justify drawing the painting before painting it.

All “forms” are valid, provided that they help the artist to express himself freely; and it is precisely here, with regard to total freedom in the execution of a work of art, that “that freedom” lies. It must not be bound in any way, because a preliminary drawing restricts your freedom at the moment of creation, as it sets out the path that the brushes must follow in the material execution of the painting.

It may be argued that this drawing is merely a sketch to position the figures “or whatever” on the canvas; I, however, believe that rather than being a help to the painter, it can become quite the opposite: a struggle between drawing and colour, between lines and forms, which in the end can turn the painter into the referee of a contest he himself has provoked, taking him away from his true task, which is to PAINT; and for that, he already has his hands and his “entrails”.

A preliminary drawing on the canvas obliges the painter to follow lines marked out in advance... even if they were drawn by the painter himself; and this means that his “total” creative freedom may be diminished, even if only during “those moments” of trance when your hands are being guided and you surrender yourself as a mere instrument in the creative process.

That state of being and not being, of being present and not being present, demands from the painter a lucidity that can only be achieved through the surrender of a novice, because every new work is a new entity that wishes to be born free and to present itself in all its splendour, without “erasures”.

Many will wonder whether, according to these arguments of mine, the masters of the past, who even used grids, did not paint freely. To this I would reply that those masters used these methods to reproduce a work they had already created, and therefore it was a second or third stage of a “reproduction”.

In reality, those “true masters”—and there have been, and still are, many of them—who draw the work they are going to create directly onto the canvas also work and paint with complete freedom, because the work they create is not painted ON the preliminary drawing; rather, their creative work begins with the making of that drawing, which is already part of the creation itself.

In all my writings, which are sometimes philosophical or theological thoughts on art and at other times merely ramblings, I intend only—if I succeed, all the better—to express a series of thoughts, ideas, and conclusions that emerge through work and through life, without claiming that they are an absolute truth, but rather my truth... at that moment..., with all the inner and outer influences and, almost always, as a result of my own limitations. That is why, as a painter, I try to strip myself bare in order to express myself through my painting with the greatest possible purity.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, July 2007

Every day we hear (but do we listen?) and see (but do we feel?) the horrors taking place around us: wars, attacks, terrorism, rape, murder, massacres, injustice, abuse, people fleeing... but where to?, famine... deaths..... I hear and see them too, but I do listen and I do feel. The scene is always the same: the lamb and the slaughterer; it is reliving a Passion every day.

All this leads me to remember the Passion of Our Lord, the great mystery of death and Resurrection, and to ask myself continually why God sent His own Son to die for us and to offer us Eternal Life.

What do we human beings do to deserve an entire God made man to sacrifice Himself to save us? How do we explain to God Himself, who knows everything, what is happening here? How do we justify to Him the millions of children who die of hunger? Do we tell Him that we used to cry out, and that now, having been left hoarse, all that remains to us is the cry of prayer? Did the Passion of Our Lord have a reason for being?... For me, it did. How could it not, when it was the Son of the Father Himself who died on the Cross for us?

The word Passion has always been hammering away at my mind, especially in these past few years, leading me many times to close my eyes and imagine, within the limits of my own understanding, the events that took place two thousand years ago. One day, it occurred to this painter to take a journey through time and recall, through lines and patches of colour, the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ as seen and felt in the 21st century; and that is how the Passion in Rando’s painting was born.

My Passion... wants to emerge from the darkness and enter the Light of Hope, the Light of Resurrection, the Light of Happiness, the Light of lights, which is the Light of Love.

God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us... but because the Son was God, He rose again; and that is precisely what I want to happen in my Passion: for Jesus Christ to come down from the Cross, and for us never to put Him back upon it, for Him not to allow Himself to be crucified again, for the Cross to remain as a symbol of Christianity, but empty; for that message of fulfilled Hope, of life and not death, to reach the world and the Church (we are all the Church); for this Passion to be Life, to be Love.

Let us all emerge from the darkness! Let us return to the Light of Love! Let us turn our cries of protest into cries of prayer, but... with our eyes open!

As a painter, I have always maintained that paintings have a life of their own and that, when the artist places the final brushstroke on the canvas, his mission is over and the work becomes autonomous and belongs only to the “viewer of paintings”. Perhaps this is why I do not like to give my paintings titles, nor to explain them, so as not to influence in any way the dialogue between painting and viewer; let them understand and interpret one another without any external interference, not even that of the artist.

And I end by reminding myself, and reminding others, that the only Creator is God... and we, those of us who are here, can only recreate; and if we allow ourselves to be guided by Him, perhaps we may succeed in creating something that can be called a Work of Art.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, March 2008

When painting or sculpture is discussed in a philosophical context, or when dialogue turns to the intrinsic and extrinsic in art, it begins from a mistaken premise, because people speak of the “philosophy of painting”, which can lead to the erroneous belief that painting has a philosophy of its own. Nothing could be further from the truth. What should be analysed is how the artist philosophically conceives the idea of the work to be created, so that this “thought” may show him the path to follow in bringing about the work of art.

That is why I insist on not confusing the terms, because painting “does not have” a philosophy; rather, it is the path of philosophical analysis that will lead us to a clear and defined concept of what the mind will convey and “recall” to the artist, who, using his hands, will ultimately be the one to physically create the work of art.

Jorge Rando, London, March 2008

The horror and terrifying misery we are experiencing in our century, when brought to the canvas by the painter, becomes beauty. When contemplated in a painting, horrors can be beautiful; when witnessed in everyday life, they are of an infernal ugliness. We must not forget that they exist and are real, not a mask concealing a tragedy by Shakespeare.

Red is not blood; black is merely shadow. Black does not exist; it is like the moment when the high jumper is in the air.

Jorge Rando, Madrid, April 2008

If, just as I maintain that red is not blood, I also maintain that love is not pain. Love exists without pain; pain is the nourishment that sustains and makes love grow. Christ nourished the love of the earth through His painful death.

This does not mean that one must feel pain in order to love, but rather that whenever one feels pain for the person one loves, the purest form of love is being expressed.

Pain is not unity, but pain does unite people who love one another.

Pain unites people who suffer through it in war. Pain unites people who love one another in peace.

Devotion to the person one loves entails pain because, even when there is no physical pain in that moment, there is the desire and fear of the suffering of the loved one.

True love is founded upon shared pain; that is why pain can become something wonderful, despite the suffering it entails. Therefore, we should not fear pain for the person we love; rather, that pain should be an offering in the name of love.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, March 2008

In 2005, an exhibition was held in Córdoba (Spain), organised by the Unicaja Foundation, under the title “The Theology of Expression”. Why was this title given to the exhibition?

We must go back to 2004, when I presented at the Porticvs Gallery in Málaga a selection of paintings from the five years preceding that date.

During a visit by the distinguished theologian Manuel Pineda, whom I accompanied throughout the exhibition, a dialogue took place between him and this painter. At the end of it, he summed up the exhibition as “The Theology of Expression”. That was his final comment and the summary of his assessment of those works he had looked at and perhaps analysed.

In another text, I will explore theology in painting after its passage through the philosophical aspect of art and “Creation”.

Jorge Rando, Madrid, April 2008

Anonymity and prominence in a work of art must be very clear to the artist if he wants the result that emerges from his hands to be as pure as possible, within each person’s limitations. Why do I use the words anonymity and prominence?... Because I am convinced that when the artist forgets that he is the one giving life to the canvas, he works solely with the result of what he is creating in mind, stripping himself of all prominence; it is then that what he has conceived in his mind will come to life in the painting. The artist’s prominence deprives the work of art of its freedom, for it must be born pure and of its own accord; and only when the artist accepts his secondary role, his role as an instrument in the creation of the Work of Art... will it be born freely.

When an exhibition opens, or a period of an artist’s creative life is displayed in a museum, there is often a tendency to fall into the error of distorting, albeit unconsciously, what is being shown, because of the answers and explanations given by the artist... Because how can the content of an exhibition be summed up in a few words? How can forty paintings be discussed as though they were a jumble of asparagus? How can one answer “off the cuff” the questions—sometimes foolish—of commentators and questioners?... Well, yes, one answers... and that is the problem: one talks and talks and talks, even about things one knows nothing about, simply because the question has arisen; and many foolish things are said... and sometimes one tries to explain the inexplicable... So what should we artists do? Not answer? My answer would be unequivocal: indeed, do not answer the question directly, but invite the interviewer to enter into a dialogue with the artist and the work.

Dialogue about the work, yes. Answer questions, no... Yes to anonymity; no to prominence.

Let the artist’s freedom be preserved both at the moment of creating the work of art and at the moment of speaking about it, and let those who are interested in it be invited into the dialogue. Let the work speak!

Jorge Rando, London, May 2008

Art was born from humanity’s need, throughout all ages, to attempt to capture on any kind of surface the beauty that surrounded us and that, although we had not created it, we were able to enjoy. In the beginning—and I will refer above all to painting and sculpture—when human beings began to seek shelter in dwellings to protect themselves from the elements and from their possible enemies, they felt the need to reproduce, through drawing, painting, or sculpture, the entire world that surrounded them: nature, animals, their deeds, or themselves. As humanity evolved, writing was born, accompanying those drawings and reliefs with narratives that told the different stories of peoples.

Later came the time when paintings and sculptures began to be given titles so that the viewer could know whom or what they were looking at. The title of the work was always consistent with what the author, later called the artist, had created. Art and humanity continued to evolve, and we reached the last two centuries, when it became necessary for scholars, and for the purposes of teaching, to clarify (classify) the different movements; and the “-isms” were born.

Today there is complete freedom in art: everything is valid! That is to say, is everything valid? Abstract art emerges, and I would like to devote part of my reflections in this writing to it.

Many artists, art historians, and “dealers” have forgotten that abstraction is a journey there and back, that abstraction is the search for essence in art, that abstraction must begin with reality, that abstraction will reach the artist with its own truth, that one does not arrive at abstraction simply by filling the canvas with lines and patches of colour and completing the work by giving it a title that has nothing to do with what is represented there... and that sometimes we are unable to decipher... that... an abstract title; in other words, we must look very carefully at what is called abstract painting, because it can abstract us to such an extent that, when we return from there, we may find ourselves without a hair on our heads.

As a painter, when I arrive at abstraction in search of the very essence of the manifestation of art, I always begin with reality and return once again to that reality; and on this journey there and back, all the paintings that have accompanied me along the way remain untitled.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, June 2008

No one has invented art. Throughout all the centuries of human existence, art has been part of life itself; and for that very reason, art cannot be reinvented.

What is another matter is that we have classified and named its different forms of expression.

The moment art loses its purity and falls into the hands of speculators and manipulators, who prostitute it for the sole purpose of making money, and who dictate what is good or bad in art, that is the moment when art ceases to be art and becomes a business. One cannot impose upon artists a particular way of expressing themselves according to fashions or market demands, according to that market which they, the merchants of art, have created for their own benefit. In doing so, they kill true art: the art that accompanies the artist in his form of expression, with complete freedom to present itself independently of form and content, together with that unity that has been forged between the artist and the work, without any external interference causing him to change his path.

He will always travel that path together with the works he creates, using his senses and the gift that has been granted to him, with the obligation to remain true to himself and to all those who, one day, will admire his work. There is no old or new work, nor work that is “out of fashion” or current; there is only good or bad work.

And applying this theory to painting, I would say that one can paint a beautiful potato and a hideous nude. What I mean is that the subject is secondary, even though some subjects may be more attractive than others; the subject is neither old nor outdated, nor modern and current, but simply that... a subject, which the painter chooses in each case in order to express himself with complete freedom, without anyone pointing out the path he must follow to remain in step with current trends.

“It isn't current”? That is false! It is simply the trend that “they” manipulate and call modernism for material and “market” interests.

Modern is everything that is being created in art today; whether it is good or bad is another matter.

What the manipulators cannot do is dictate the movements that correspond to different centuries. That, however, is the role of art historians and scholars: to analyse the evolution of art over time, as well as the artists who, through their art, have marked an era, because the evolution of humanity, from its beginnings, has always been inseparable from art.

Art is life itself, and artists are the instruments through which those works are created that have always accompanied us throughout the centuries.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2009

Since the beginning of time, human beings have always organised themselves—or have been organised and placed into categories—whether in tribes or in artistic movements. I believe we carry within us the scent of the herd. There has always been little room for individualists in different societies. I believe that a person’s instinct is stronger than their wisdom. Learning and being categorised is more comfortable; developing one’s instinct is the purest path. In my painting, I seek only one thing: to paint and not smear the colours.

I believe that painting should not be understood, but should simply produce a sensation in you, even if that sensation is one of rejection. Every adjective one wishes to attribute to it is an attempt to explain the inexplicable, because sensations cannot be conveyed; they can only be felt.

In their eagerness to categorise everything, human beings have given a name to everything that has been painted and is being painted throughout history. I believe we must not fall into the temptation of finding happiness in belonging to one of these groups, or in doing what the present moment demands of you for fear that your work might be rejected.

I believe that if one picks up a brush under the burden of obligation, a work born of instinct can never emerge, but only the craftsmanship of the master—perhaps with mastery and beauty, but possibly with half a soul. Let others catalogue us, and we, those of us who paint, should do only that: paint.

We must fight against that false paradise they offer us in exchange for doing what “they want”, those “they” who seek to control even what they neither admire nor love and, at times, even despise.

Let us not demean ourselves before a society in which the power of money takes precedence over almost everything. Let us be a little part of that “almost” and create our work with complete freedom, without anyone guiding our brushes; let this task be carried out only by the masters and, above all, by our instinct.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2009

What can be achieved in painting through our own efforts, and what is given to us... through the effort made to achieve the supreme work of art.

It is a gift for a finished work to have a life of its own, not only to express itself but also to shape its forms and..., why not, to correct the painter himself; because the creation of a painting by the artist always follows a process which, to begin with, arises from the sensations received from everything that surrounds us and in which we are immersed, whether material or spiritual. All these perceptions are internalised, only to be brought forth later and expressed on the canvas.

To reach a state in which the artist is granted the grace for the work itself to present itself before the eyes of the “viewers” and communicate with them directly, dispensing with certain nuances and adding others—in order to reach that point, I repeat, the artist must strip himself of “everything” and allow himself to be carried along as an instrument through which the work is created. Only in this way can he receive the gift—not he himself, but the finished work that has emerged from his brushes.

It is then that he will have achieved a dimension, the supreme dimension of painting, never forgetting that it is a gift and not an achievement.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, January 2009

A few days ago, I was reading an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about “Art in Times of Crisis”; this German newspaper explored the influence that the crisis is having on the art market. And it was precisely the word market that made me stop, because it seemed sacrilegious to me to place the word market alongside art; art is a religion, not a market.

This article reminded me of some statements made by a highly acclaimed artist of our time, in which he attempted to justify (quite unnecessarily!) the payments he had received for a commission that seemed disproportionate to many. He defended himself against the criticism over the high price he had charged by saying that the entire process involved in completing the work had, among other things, kept him away from the “market” for many months. Market–Art, Art–Market. Money and recognition. Well!

It is precisely in this communion, sometimes a cursed one, that I see the danger: the artist, perhaps seeking recognition above all else, may place himself in the hands of the market and lose his freedom, “sell his soul to the devil”, and put himself at its service in exchange for money and greater recognition.

The saddest part of this whole process, if it ever occurs, is that in reaching that stage of negotiation between art and the market, the artist, however good or very good he may be, is still human; and that ego which accompanies us like our very own shadow is sometimes so powerful that it takes the place of the person.

The shadow is always black and will drag the artist into its darkness. Once stripped of his freedom, his art will be reduced to a mere expression of his knowledge, which may be that of a master, but of an amputated master, because he will lack the energy to one day achieve the Work of Art.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, July 2009

Art, more than helping, I would say is essential to the development of humanity and, consequently, of humankind. When I paint, I am convinced that, by presenting the result, I am encouraging the viewer (the person who looks at paintings) to act, and therefore to become more human, so that, in turn, they may continue to develop their own personality. They should not remain confined to the moment they experience while contemplating the work, nor to “their moment”, but continue beyond it and, through their actions, help themselves and humanity.

Does art in general contribute to all of this? Yes, it does; and it is essential that civilisations take this into account as they continue along their path, which, ultimately, is the path of humankind.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, July 2009

Painting is a spiritual search, because spirituality is present in everything that surrounds us and within ourselves. Everything we can observe, everything we can touch, has a visible part and an invisible one; in human beings, we distinguish between the two as body and soul. There are events and feelings, work and dreams, what can be touched and what can be felt. Well then... as a painter, I seek all of this.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, July 2009

Capturing everything we see or feel and then bringing it into our inner selves is the first step towards reaching the philosophical concept of what the painter wishes to express on the canvas.

The materialisation of the work is the least important part of its creation, since the master, presumably, has mastered his craft.

What is essential is to have a very clear concept in one’s mind of what one wishes to paint—in other words, to have already painted it mentally.

I do not intend, in this writing, to develop a philosophical thesis on concept and painting, but I do wish to clarify, if I can, my thoughts on that transition from the philosophical treatment of painting to the theology of artistic creation.

I begin with the premise—as I have already mentioned in several of my writings—that the only Creator who exists is God. He created everything that our senses can perceive. We artists use the senses we have been given to create works of art, but always based on something that already exists, something that has already been created; that is why we artists, to use language correctly, merely recreate. One might say that, from something that has already been created and which we perceive, we give life to something new... and I would agree. We may even, and indeed we call it this, create; and I would accept that too, but always on the basis of these premises:

1. That the only Creator is God.
2. That we artists are granted a gift with which we are born, and which we can, and must, develop.
3. That the great work of art can only be achieved when the artist immerses himself in his work as an instrument and allows himself to be carried along as such.

Only through surrender and work... with the philosophical concept of painting clearly understood as subordinate to the theological concept of creation, only in this way, I repeat, can one follow the only path that exists towards achieving those works of art that will mark the artist’s life.

I am convinced that those works of art, scattered throughout the world and which we admire, were created by exceptional artists and that, in the process of creation, consciously or unconsciously, they allowed themselves to be guided by what I describe as “instruments”, and which others may call inspiration. Personally, however, I believe, as do many other artists, that inspiration comes with work; it is intrinsic to the process of creating the work. It does not come from some unknown place into our minds; rather, it is already there, within the process of the work of art, always accompanying the work. We only have to discover it.

Today I would like to end these thoughts here, but there will be more occasions on which I will reflect upon fears, the strength of instinct, and the demons by which all artists are surrounded.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, July 2009

The Museum in the gardens of Málaga Cathedral is the first and only open-air museum in Málaga.

At the beginning of 2007, the then Dean, D. Francisco García Mota, contacted me because he wished for the old wooden yokes, as well as some made of iron, to be restored and put on display. This was where the idea of creating an open-air museum arose.

First, I restored the yokes and used them, together with the clappers, to incorporate them into several of the sculptures that make up the museum, some weighing more than two tonnes. The challenge was to bring these imposing 18th-century yokes to life and capture the sound of the bells. That was the great challenge; and I solved it by using space as mass.

At the foot of the north tower, I installed the crosses, which had already been exhibited in the exhibition I held at the Episcopal Palace in 2008: “a veritable forest of crosses in which the artist reflects upon the universal symbolism of the cross.”

And, as the final sculpture, I created Embrace of the Cross, a purely Expressionist sculpture, strong and powerful, which embraces the cross... To support itself, or to support the cross? The inscription engraved in iron reads: “The embrace of the cross is an embrace of love.”

In these times, when such fierce attacks are directed against the symbol of Christians, the cross, we cannot remain silent; we must proclaim our faith through it... through the symbol of love.

Christian art does not sell, but we Christian artists must always bear witness to our faith at every moment of our lives; and we must devote part of our lives to making art, to recreating what the Supreme Creator has already created, to discovering that we are merely instruments of that greater force that guides our hand at the moment of creation.

The Christian artist must never hide his beliefs at any moment, even if doing so may sometimes come at the expense of his success in the art world.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, September 2009

When my good and old friend José Luis Linares, parish priest of the Nativity, asked me to paint a mural for the church, he chose only the subject: the Parable of the Sower. I was given complete freedom in developing the work. For the support, I chose a polyptych consisting of five wooden panels, framed within a powerful iron structure measuring 15 × 3 metres.

Between 1971 and 1973, I travelled throughout the world, becoming particularly interested in the art of stained glass. I therefore visited the cathedrals of the different countries through which I travelled, focusing especially on Spain, France, and Germany, where I also came into contact with the techniques of glassmaking and leadwork. As I looked back on those distant years and revisited the analyses I had made at the time of the subjects depicted in the stained-glass windows of the cathedrals, I noticed how little prominence was given to women in their pictorial representations. It was at that moment that I developed the painting in my mind. It would be a tribute to the Sower, to the Word who was in the beginning and who later dwelt among us.

The central figure is the Sower scattering the seed, while each of the other four panels is occupied by a woman pointing towards the fallen seed and turning towards the Lord in a dance of praise.

With these figures painted on wood, imitating stained-glass windows through an Expressionist approach, I have sought to pay tribute to the woman catechist and to women in general, who help—and in no small way—to sustain the Church; strong women whose indispensable role in spreading our Christian doctrine is now publicly recognised in the 21st century.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, September 2009

I found the meeting that the Holy Father held with artists very timely; or rather, I would say, it arose from the need to “restore the friendship between the Church and artists”. I sense that the friendship between the two has never been completely broken, since the Christian artist will always support his Church because God stands above art. Nevertheless, I do believe that a certain distance has existed, and continues to exist, between them. I believe that this is due less to economic problems—for we must not forget that, in the past, and not only during the Renaissance, the Church was the artists’ principal client and also their greatest and finest patron—and more to the fact that the Church, particularly at its highest levels, has set art aside and, above all, forgotten that art in all its forms is the soul of civilisations, the counterpart to material things, and that the Church has a duty to guide that gift, which is art, and that instrument, which is the artist, towards the greater glory of the Supreme Creator.

John Paul II already said this in his Letter to Catholic Artists of 4 April 1999, in which, in its opening section, he spoke of the artist as an image of God the Creator and called for a fruitful dialogue between the Church and the artist... John Paul II also said that society needs artists.

Church and art is a pairing that must never cease to exist.

For me, as an artist, the most direct way of encountering God is through the process of creation, in which you surrender yourself to Him completely as an instrument and as the only means of achieving a work that can truly be called a masterpiece.

For the viewer of a work of art, the encounter with God comes at the moment when they perceive beauty as yet another work of creation by the one and only Creator, God.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, September 2009

I wanted to create a sculptural group of crosses rising into space, or, better still, existing within space. And why eight crosses rather than seven or nine? When I began the work, I had not decided how many crosses there would be; I simply intended to create a group in which each cross, together with its support, would be different.

The cross is the symbol of Christianity, but at the same time it is the symbol of LOVE. And love, sometimes—perhaps too often—is also suffering. Each of us carries “our own cross”, which does not necessarily have to be a heavy burden; LOVE is not a burden, love is happiness, and therefore the Cross can become happiness.

Why, then, eight crosses? After completing the sculptural group, I realised that I had created eight crosses; the number eight (∞ 8)—when placed horizontally, it is the symbol of infinity—has neither beginning nor end. The number 8 symbolises the balance of the entire cosmos, balance in space. In nothingness, the number 8 fills the void; it is the symbol of Christ’s Resurrection.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, October 2009

How did my artistic vocation come about? What role has painting played in my development as a person? These and many other questions are ones I sometimes ask myself during moments of reflection, and they also arise frequently in interviews and conversations about art and painting.

In some of my writings, I maintain that, first, artists must be born as such; then, we must recognise that we are artists; and finally, we must learn... And in these opening lines, I am going to develop my philosophy of painting.

For me, the art of painting is the art of loving. Without love, sublime feelings cannot exist, and these are ultimately what can shape the masterpiece of which every painter dreams.

For me, painting has been immensely important throughout my life, as a large part of my life and my humanistic education has developed around this art, through the deeply personal practice of observation, introspection, and meditation, in order, through this continuous process of learning, to understand all the elements a painter must draw upon: composition, volume, line, colour, matter, and so on.

We all know the different ways in which a painter can learn. They may attend training courses, work with a teacher who guides them and shares their wisdom, or pursue other forms of practice to develop their painting. I chose the path of seeking art in nature and in everything that forms part of it, observing everything that exists and everything that happens around us in order to learn how to look and internalise every sensation, so that these sensations may later emerge with all their force, allowing the person whom I call the “viewer of the painting” to make the work their own and interpret it according to the sensations it evokes in them, so that it is they, rather than the painter, who becomes the interlocutor of the work of art.

I am sometimes asked about my pictorial style or the movement to which I might belong, my artistic trajectory, evolution, and so on.

Although I tend to avoid these subjects, I believe that in the society in which we live, it is necessary, for the sake of general understanding, to label styles, movements, and so forth, particularly for historians and scholars of art history, so that we can situate ourselves within a particular period. In Spain and elsewhere in the world, I am usually “placed” among contemporary Neo-Expressionists.

As for the current state of painting in Spain and the acceptance of contemporary art by the viewer, my opinion is that there is currently no clearly defined cultural understanding in Spain. The overall picture of contemporary painting is very confused, and the current tendency to politicise everything has reached the world of art as well. This may be the cancer that wears art down or brings about its demise, because art without complete freedom is dead art. The true artist must therefore continue along his own path without allowing himself to be swept away by any kind of “movement”.

I am sometimes asked my opinion about selling paintings at auction, and I believe it is a positive practice because it helps to establish an artist within the art market. It is a practice that is particularly widespread in Germany, where I also have a painting studio, specifically in Hamburg, which I combine with my studio in Málaga.

I would like to end these thoughts with a phrase that defines my philosophy of painting and art in general:

“Everything moves through love; that is why creation without love is merely colour without a soul.”

Jorge Rando, Málaga, May 2010

I am sitting on the terrace of Suite 610, sailing across the Bay of Biscay. I listen to the concert of the waves as they form when the ocean is broken by the ship’s bow. Once again, the question I have asked myself so many times before comes to mind: can the sound of the waves be painted? Can that music be painted? I am looking at the sea; the realism of its beauty and its strength lies within the reach of my eyes and also my mind... but can I capture its sound and internalise it, so that I can later bring it forth and reproduce it on a canvas?... Is such a thing possible?

And once again, the demons of reality and abstraction appear. For a painter, the path towards reaching the essence of reality is not through words. The painter must express himself not through signs that explain the work he creates, but by allowing the painting itself to speak. I do not give any of my works titles.

I look inside the cabin and see my wife resting, and I see love. That is why, for me, nothing is impossible.

Jorge Rando, sailing, June 2010

When I enter my studio in the morning to begin “my working day”, the “almost” same ritual is always repeated, beginning with the sense of smell. The senses are like a shadow that is always with you. If you stop to think about the process of creation, you realise how important all the senses bestowed upon us by the Supreme Creator are.

I am not going to analyse the importance of each of them in this writing, but today I would like to focus on sight.

The gaze explores and opens the way to the process of artistic creation, in which the other senses will take part and assume their own prominence in order to complete the artist’s work. In writing these thoughts, what I wish is for the viewer of a work of art, in order to communicate with it, to be aware that the artist has truly put his “five senses” into creating it.

Knowing how to use all these gifts granted to artists in the creation of their works depends solely and exclusively on them, each according to their own abilities and preparation.

If we observe the works of different artists, we will become fully aware of the foundations upon which they are constructed. All foundations are valid, provided that you know how to maintain the structure of a well-executed work.

I do not want to end these thoughts without speaking specifically about painting. The act of painting does not end with preparing a canvas and putting “something” onto it. That may be the beginning of the journey; reaching the end means turning that “something” into a synthesis which, having come from outside, becomes an intrinsic part of the painter, so that he can bring it onto the canvas with all his senses and with every component of which he is capable, in order to achieve a work created with complete freedom and without any constraints.

Jorge Rando, Málaga, June 2010

A few months ago, a travelling exhibition devoted entirely to the subject of prostitution came to an end. It opened in Málaga and then travelled to New York, where it remained for three months.

From the United States, it returned to Madrid, and once its tour of Spain had ended, it travelled to Germany, visiting several cities across the country. The exhibition was extensive and dealt exclusively with the subject of prostitution.

Today I feel the need to set down in a few lines why I created these paintings.

When I confronted this degrading problem, which affects women above all, I did not stop to analyse the reasons why they reach this point... whether forced by criminal organisations, through drugs, out of necessity and... why not, also by their own choice. I did not want, I repeat, to dwell on the causes, but rather on the reality that surrounds us, increasingly painful and cruel. That flight into hopelessness... that flight into that black tunnel... from which I do believe it is possible to emerge. There is always a light somewhere that will illuminate our way out of those accursed darknesses and point us towards the path of human dignity... and, why not, the path that will lead us to the Light of lights.

Returning to my paintings, which I called “The Ascetic Gaze in Painting” or also “Prostitution in Rando’s Painting”, what I seek to do is give women a space in that “stage of their lives”, because that is all it is: a stage in the lives of these women, these young people, these children... Life does not begin or end with the enslavement of prostitution. It is possible to escape that prison; one must escape that field of thorns, even if it is with deep wounds, with poisoned wounds that may remain with you throughout your life.

And what does the painter do? He shows that reality in his paintings. And why? So that the viewer, “the person who looks at paintings”, will act.

I do not denounce. I would never undermine the dignity of people in that “stage of their lives”; I simply paint that reality so that we may act, so that we may do something, even if it is only to pray, which is already a great deal. We must not remain impassive, waiting for the next report of another death or further acts of rape in that horrible and cruel market of flesh... and of the spirit. Let us act! Let us not be cowards!

Jorge Rando, Málaga, June 2010

Expressionism was a movement that broke with the concept of painting that prevailed at the end of the 19th century. Before that, the Fauves had already made colour the protagonist of their creations.

The Expressionists succeeded in making colour triumph over form; they freed themselves from all the constraints that could still confine painting and opened the path towards abstraction. In their search for the essence of painting, they arrived at abstraction, although, as I have already explained in some of my reflections, abstraction is a journey there and back. For this reason, in my opinion, the “label” Abstract Neo-Expressionism should not exist, because if abstraction is a destination reached through the artist’s attempt to seek and synthesise what is essential in painting, once everything has been “cooked” within him, and always starting from a reality... then, I repeat, presenting Abstract Neo-Expressionism as a new and independent movement, which begins and ends with the concept of abstraction, is mistaken and has, at the same time, served as a refuge for many art-world opportunists who have committed the great sacrilege of the 21st century.

I do not want to end these thoughts and reflections, so appropriate to this century in which everything has become so politicised (especially here in Spain), without calling for an end to virtual politics and for real politics to begin. I would demand that those who lead and represent us, those who make the laws by which we govern ourselves, follow the path that art has taken throughout the centuries—in painting, sculpture, literature, music, cinema, and so on—a path that has always crossed borders, sought new forms, explored new horizons, and united peoples around a common cause: the search for beauty, tearing down walls, and always in a universal spirit.

That is why I am convinced, and I have always proclaimed it, that the soul of cities is art, while the soul of civilisations is love. And the great Love is the Creator, and we artists are the “foot soldiers” who must sow the seed of love throughout the world.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, September 2010

There should be no rule in art that strangles it. As early as the 19th century, artists began to free themselves from all the rules that constrained Art, giving rise to a “free art” expressed through a language of its own.

This brief preamble is not intended to offer an opinion on the evolution of art over the past centuries, but rather to provide me with a starting point to remind us artists to remain alert and awake, and not to be deceived by the “siren song” of the “art market”, by those art peddlers who seek to impose “already-repealed” rules through what “they” call today’s avant-garde movements.

Let us artists not fall into a trap that deprives us of our freedom. Let us follow the path—our path—the one we have forged through the process of creation, with a language of our own... ours, the one each of us has with which to express ourselves. There are no longer any constraints in art. Every artist can, and must, use their own language to express their sensations, their denunciations, their love... in short, whatever they wish, with the freedom that art offers.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, September 2010

Does the artist’s state of mind influence the final result of their work? I would answer yes. A person’s state of mind is constantly changing, depending on the moment, circumstances, and also the sensations produced by everything that surrounds them, as well as those inherent to their own feelings, whether momentary or deeply rooted.

All these sensations that the artist perceives are internalised and become part of them, consciously or unconsciously, when they undertake their work, without “that influence” on their state of mind distinguishing between the different subjects of the work to be created. What I mean by this is that if the artist (a painter, in my case) is immersed in a particular subject... such as Africa (that continent where such terrible horrors are taking place), and if, during that period, the artist decides to create some “more relaxing” works, even romantic ones, in order to take a break from the pressure produced by those images transferred onto the canvas, those other works created in between will nevertheless also be intense, because the subject that has occupied and continues to occupy his mind is intense, until he has brought that subject to completion, having devoted himself to it body and soul; and he will not rest until he has brought to the outside world all those paintings that his mind has already painted.

And I shall end these reflections as I began: the artist’s state of mind, even unconsciously, influences the final result of the work.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, September 2010

To develop this thought and reflect upon it would require an entire, extensive treatise. Here and now, I wish to present “my treatise”, “my reflections”; and I am going to appropriate the word dimension so that it may help me explain... to myself what I consider to be the different dimensions in painting, in which neither the painter can do without the canvas, brushes, or colours, nor can he do without spirituality in the creation of the work of art.

This means starting from the philosophical concept of painting and turning what might have been the central figure—the painter—into the instrument through which the painting paints itself... so that it may have a life of its own, as we have often heard, although this has almost always remained empty words that even those who uttered them did not truly believe... it simply “sounded good”, “very poetic”... but... why can the artist not surrender himself completely and allow himself to be used as an instrument to carry out the material work of creation?...

And this is where we enter into the theological concept of painting.

Returning to my dimensions in painting—which I will develop more extensively in the future—this would mean that the first dimension is the existence of the painter and his surroundings. The second dimension is achieved by the artist in the act of painting. The third dimension is reached by the painter through sculpture. The fourth dimension is that of the spirituality of the man-painter. The fifth dimension—this is where the heart of the matter lies! This is where the answer to all the questions in painting lies! This is where the summum of art lies! This is where the philosophical concept of painting becomes theology! This is where the painting paints itself!

This is the dimension I would like to reach, even if only to catch a glimpse of it: to surrender myself with my brushes, my colours, and my knowledge, and allow myself to be used by the one and only Creator, so that the canvas may recreate the work of art.

As I said at the beginning of these reflections, if I am capable, I shall continue developing “my treatise” on the dimensions in painting, above all the fifth dimension, which I will expand upon in my next written reflection.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, September 2010

In comments and conversations about painting and painters, one sometimes hears it said that this or that artist has achieved success.

And I ask myself... What is a painter’s triumph? How is that triumph measured?... By their market value?... By their international recognition?... We could go on adding questions in search of an answer that, at times, the artist might ask himself.

Personally, I have very often heard, in conversations about art, people speak of artists who have achieved success, but... where does the painter’s true triumph lie? I am convinced that I have the answer: the painter’s triumph lies in the very act of painting, in the moment when he faces the blank canvas and begins to bring it to life. That moment, I repeat, is when he is truly triumphant.

To paint—that is the painter’s great triumph!

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, September 2010