From a formal aspect, I recover manipulated and leftover damaged

material that is abandoned, residual objects, (occasional rubbish). They

are traces of a hardworking man, of his needs; they are remains of
society’s infrastructures to which we belong. On the other hand; these
recovered elements, which have been waste without purpose, become
intense elements in the hands of a "bricoleur", that in combination with
its more intimate aesthetic arguments, are manipulated and recycled
towards a work of compositive essence, of which formal nature is
abstract and its result, is unique. RECICL-ARTE
At some point in time, the communion of povera and minimal art,
becomes evident when analyzing my current works; this is undeniable
since this parallelism, is implied in some aspects from the moment I
conceived them. Nevertheless when executing them, there are
sequences that imply me towards a magical posture, opposed to the
scientific posture. I am betoken more towards a feeling and an intuition
rather than a mere constructed, conceptual rule (less is more) or by the
balances of composition by axes.
As an author, I am more interested in the debate of finding the aesthetic
unit of a feeling, than in balancing an aesthetically pleasing composition.
In search of a language that reveals something of that amount of
cognitive substance, which has employed the author’s work, when in its
execution, has been put under an emotion that exceeds him, astonishes
him and nourishes him of uncertainty. - The abstract sense, guides the
expression of my work; the harmony in the simplicity of the color, is
another reason of being of these works; and the will to remove it from its
interior.
A "universal language" of visual arts expression, is the firm reason that I
have had in making them, with the conviction that I am creating a new
paradigm At present, I am attracted to the matter of nature, stones
fundamentally. Wherever I
arrive and encounter stones in their natural environment, I order and
situate them, I voluntarily leave an ephemeral and provoking message,
that others may destroy or just might continue there, (because of that
provocation). I do not want to hide that there is a calling to the totemic
ancestry of our essence of intellectual beings, structured in developing
suitable languages and in creating mythologies.
What Luís Pablo does is to chose dysfunctional material: which has
stopped
working or that no longer serves purpose for which they were
constructed; but it does, more so, not by the quality of the material that
it posses - although I do appreciate it- but by the possible beauty of its
shapes. It is this new formal function that interests the artist, that values
and exploits it, to which gives new value: an already aesthetic value. The
function of the shapes in visual arts is equivalent to the the words used
in Literature. A formal universe, a repertoire of shapes, challenges the
artist - if it is truly the creation of a syntax that relates them and orders
them.
That is the challenge of the creator, that is the quality - or the power to
which we call style. And we thus call it this way knowing its extreme
complexity and
contingency. The creative germ is found in shapes, the potential gene,
the genetic capacity of art. There must be control, dominion, fortitude,
depth and force in an artist: in short, proportion. The dreadful crisis of
values that led expressionism to an extreme of causing the outbreak of
shapes, managed, nevertheless, to destroy the formal concepts,
although no less, the future of the aesthetic world of art had come to an
end. With the materials of those explosions, and of many others which
inevitably hamper us, the artist (Luís Pablo) can continue seeding beauty
before the overwhelmed eyes of those who very little expected.
The formal (and compositive) possibilities of collage explains its
important
contribution to the vanguard of a global aesthetic configuration. This
formal power continues generating, in spite of all its achievements - not
that I’m against it in any way.. Luís Pablo’s interest in expressive
investigation of collages are observed in his work since 1977. It was in
that year when he made a small group of pictures of gay, abstract
baroque compositions. The appreciation of shapes, color and the relief of
the glued material are also noticed. A gold mine which might have never
been exploited. However collage and its mysterious attractiveness was
used again in an exhibition in March 1992 and also in September of
1998, we can say that this completed a creative road of classic cut
within his essential avant-garde. Although,
the painter, surely, felt a restless need to make improvements in that
style of
contemporary aesthetic, sharing his most intimate and complex ideas in
an
extensive investigation of expressive formalism. That restlessness arises
jubilant in the great series of works, made between 2004 and 2006, that
conforms his current exhibition. In it, a great internal logic process is
culminated, which Luis Pablo has achieved the use of collage in its more
elementary form, to its cheerful use of papiers colés to a very purified
and elegant recreation,, of objets trouvés.
When contemplating those found objects we do not recognize there
original
function, integrated in a new dimension, typically found in art. What
might have been an easy task of choosing (and selection; also the
relation) those objects, is where we encounter certain obstacles, where
only a good artist, is able to overcome. That oversight transformation
can be frustrating. That risk is surpassed by an essential harmony, which
makes each work a complete scope making everything possible
(imaginable). In short it is all about foretelling destroyed beauty and
then generating another beauty. There is no recreation in these works,
but, a rigorous, essential and premeditated creation, in which shapes -
as adapted as they may appear, are always conditioned to the concept,
the subject, to the spiritual and visual arts universe of each work in
itself. It is also used as an expressive, formal
means, something that was contained in itself, expressing a universal
concept of forms.
Luís Pablo composes by compensating and balancing, at the same time
relating and coordinating the different elements that are integrated in
each work. The composition refers to the double balance of masses and
shapes; a chromatic space, generally cold and uniformed, integrated
with each other in a harmonious way. Color, is not conceived as a
background nor as an adornment or a filler, but it is defined by its
integrating capacity of shapes and masses, and, in second term, by its
clarifying and illuminating purpose. The blunt materiality, sometimes
acts shamelessly and violently ,seducing the painter to an extreme by
integrating in some works sparkles of color that have a pure purpose of
visual arts of, these are much more material than chromatic. The
chromatic scope generates spectral lights, steel like and cold, in which
matter acquires a poetic sense of prevalence after destruction, of
eternal rubbish; a kind of bitter revenge of the breakage, the chip, the
wrinkle and the crack against the manufacturing arrangement, the
decorative
advertising and the vulgar consumer. A new fierceness, a savagery, a
forest
generated by destruction and abandonment. The remainders of the
industrial
consumption, the remainders of the urban technique, refer to the homo
faber, simultaneously giving a testimony to, a creative enthusiasm, to its
capacity of progress, and its incapacity to avoid deterioration and
degradation. An urban epic, which ending is always melancholic.
There is a side of Luís Pablo’s paintings little noticed by the critic: the
essential humanism that hides and extends to all its creation and
overflowing the strict limits of abstraction, exuding itself by the spirit of
the contemplator in an abundance of joy of living, cordiality, pleasing
chromatic joy and, of memorable references. The abstract paintings of
Luís, are expressive and abstract and are filled with humanity,
tenderness and promise: it is an invitation to friendship, to an encounter
of the creator and the spectator on the edge of art. For that same
reason, Luís Pablo has always valued creative aspects more than
thematic or technical aspects.
In 1954, the last and precise publication of the Uruguayan magazine
Alfar, Jose Bergamín quoted: "the living substance of Art, as a mirror, is
always outside of oneself [... ] That is to say, that it is exclusively a
human reality." A question raised so shrewdly, with a rude devious and
acid tone,: "an art that dehumanizes, commits suicide?" Luís Pablo’s art
is a necessary, and vital humanism. From previous accumulation of
artistic experiences, human relations and reflections on art, derive this
exigency of unloading, of relief, of communication. A catharsis and
recognition. Neither finishing nothing nor beginning it ; a simple and
natural continuation. But expressive, showy and shiny. Whispers and
songs are heard. But also voices are listened to. All an accumulating
thrust (never inert) of a visceral and determined
artist, that overflowing,hedged by the findings of the floodgates and the
insufficient overflows. Luís Pablo is overwhelmed, he grows in this
exhibition; the calm river of these calm and harmonious works are found
in the force and anger of the torrent.
Value and peace, energy and serenity, in a work of amused and innocent
gestation and development. The true battle of an artist is channeling
and taming chance,. Luís Pablo says: Chance does what I want it to (do).
Luís Pablo’s paintings show enormous sensitivity towards matters
derived from the manifest imbalance between our planet and the
immoderation of human production.
This conflict involves great exponential demand of resources of
developed societies as the projection of waste of the system, mainly
rises new expositions that not only affect the practical questions but,
and, to the conceptual ones. A new vital attitude of environmental
balance, of a cosmos centered vision, to coexist and not to jeopardize
the future. Within this interpretation there is a suggestive profile of Luís
Pablo’s work. Thus, the discarded material , "rubbish" according to his
own words, incorporated in his work has a later meaning, contributing to
close the circuit of external recovery (reusability, recycling or
regeneration) of the discarded material.
That is to say, implying itself in the complete process of production, from
the
beginning of the resources to the evacuation, and to the recovery of that
rubbish, diminishing the degradation from their surroundings, while
taking advantage of the socially categorized idea of having no purpose.
It is not a matter of giving another interpretation to the common object,
sacralising and desacaralizing the great issues of art, but to incorporate
the discarded objects,devoid of any such value, but by such
manipulation by the author will again retrieve meaning and gain its own
life, giving a place to active works,fully and of great conceptual value to
visual arts.
In addition, Luís Pablo Gomez Vidales shows his ability to play on the
whole of his recycling, in the sense of time. What happened, showing his
ephemeral life, now returns, recovering apparently the non-recoverable,
enjoying a new time, of a prorogation we could say, and changing
around the linear sense of the events that are now entangled in a
superposed temporary sequence. Both the concepts that nourish the
Reciclarte work, as well as the work in itself, has been able to capture a
historical moment at which they take place; responding and totally
translating to the demands and interests of that.