ANA AVELAR 2016

Teacher, curator and art critic.

https://issuu.com/jaimeprades/docs/dentro_inside_catdigital

INSIDE
Jaime Prades exhibition

BEYOND THE MOVEMENT

curator Ana Avelar

In the series Dentro, Jaime Prades uses graphism to create paintings that are both dynamic and silent; they subtly vibrate under our gaze and explicit, here and there, the presence of the hand in the calligraphy of the lines and in the application of the paint. Therefore these paintings resonate the historic statement of Paul Klee – whom Prades reads permanently – about movement being “the basis of all transformation.”

However, despite the homogeneous appearance when seen from a distance, Prades’ patterns are far from being op art, because, although the presence of op art is evident, these patterns are not a mere perceptive play; they are, in Klee’s style, a sort of element of transformation of subjectivity. Nevertheless, these works are not about a mystical discourse as the one related to the early period of abstract art; instead, they affirm the “linear energies” present in graphic art, mentioned by the Swiss-German artist.

The contemporary notion of patterns (which can be translated into Portuguese as padrões) – as understood by Frank Stella and widely present in his painting – was used by the American artist to ensure an objectivity of the gesture and oppose itself to what he believed to be a negative feature of European tradition: the valuing of the balanced, compositional and well-finished painting.

Although Prades’ current paintings may visually evoke Stella’s due to their graphism and flatness just as Stella’s 1960s paintings were associated to Vasarely’s, the issues that drive them are entirely different. Whereas in Stella we see the literality of patterns and in Vasarely we see his fascination for the possibilities of the visual perception of movement, Prades is interested in the trance established by relative repetition, like in a mantra. Through continuity as well as through an attentive, long lasting and patient work, this experience seeks to offer a door to contemplation through a curvilinear and sensual shape.

By the way, this graphism, which is simultaneously a grid and not a grid, together with the irregularities of the hand and a silent palette, conceptually speaking, brings to mind the work of Agnes Martin, a Canadian painter who lived in the USA. Although Martin’s paintings are created using washed-out hues, and includes grids or stripes – they also blur the limits between drawing and painting –, the effect of these works is similar to the effects of Prades’ current paintings, which were created with no previous project and through the application of charcoal directly on the canvas (a line that is “done when is being drawn,” according to Prades).

Martin wrote about beauty and art. To her, many of the emotional responses in life cannot be expressed through words. The painter believed that works related to non-verbal responses surprised us. Therefore, she advised us to keep our minds as empty and calm as her works so that we could recognize our feelings when standing before them. This same attitude is advised when one wishes to enter the paintings displayed in Prades’ show – one must look attentively and respect the time of sensitivity to understand them.

Prades’ paintings seem to grow beyond the pictorial space in a docile movement whose subtle geometry, in some works, suggests a breathing membrane. He pursues this pliant geometry as a feminine response to that stiff, ridgy, and masculine geometry. He goes on the opposite direction of reason; he is interested in the continuous line that wants to set subjectivity free and redeem pleasure. The thickness of the lines and their sinuosity brings to mind the marks left by a plow, the object that digs, moves and aerates the ground, allowing what is underneath and inside to surface. Similarly, from time to time, these furrows suggest twists, evoking the universe of weaving and spinning, which is traditionally related to what’s feminine.

Prades particularly adopts a shaded palette and, although his paintings highlight the surface, it is actually formed by concealment. In addition, their apparent graphic preciseness, when more closely looked at, reveals its gestural details.

As one notices, the artist’s work is full of ambiguity: a graphic work that inhabits painting; a sort of painting that does not explicitly discuss painting, but is created as such and contains several subtle material layers; it is a geometry that addresses sensations and does not aim at exploring the relation among formal elements.

The pulsing painting of Prades seduces us and makes our eyes wander smoothly along its shapes and, like the chant of sirens – and their undulating hair –, we must allow ourselves to be seduced because we do not fear the bottom of the sea to which we will certainly be taken. As Klee said, “Let yourself be carried on the invigorating sea, on a broad river or an enchanting brook, such as that of the richly diversified aphoristic graphic art.”