14 Aug 09 by XXS XXS
XXS XXS artworks

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PRT.01

PRT.01

PRT.02
PRT.02
PRT.02

PRT.02

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24 Aug 09 22:32

La palabra “rotundo” no tiene las mismas connotaciones en inglés y en español, por eso he preferido usarla en nuestra lengua, creo que este retrato lo es, y la expresión reflexiva de la chica no hace más que acentuarme esta sensación , su mirada evita al espectador y nos hace seguir su camino que al final no está fuera sino dentro de ella misma.
Y nos deja al margen.
Como un objeto cerrado sin apertura ninguna, autista, me crea curiosidad, rezuma una fuerza contenida, y solitaria ensimismada, con un peso matérico que va más allá de la técnica empastada que has utilizado, parece a punto de desbordar o desbordarse del cuadro . Creo que has conseguido un retrato ante el que uno se detiene y en el que uno busca, y eso no és fácil, enhorabuena.

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25 Aug 09 20:14

Beautiful words. Thank you very much. I just hope my painting will match your words.

I have found that most people engaged in this work are extremely perfectionist. When we finished a painting we see in it what we wanted to achieve and if this time we have succeeded or not. The findings, the hesitations, the progress or losses ... but sometimes we lack the critical distance necessary to judge the painting. Therefore we need the others sight.

If this sight comes also from the sharp and experiences eyes of someone I respect and admire -not just in professionally terms- I can be more than satisfied.

Gracias. Sólo espero que mi cuadro esté a la altura de tus palabras, porque lo que has dicho es realmente bonito.

He podido comprobar que la mayoría de los que nos dedicamos a esto somos tremendamente perfeccionistas. Cuando terminamos un cuadro vemos en él más lo que queríamos conseguir y si esta vez lo hemos logrado o no. Los hallazgos nuevos, los titubeos, los progresos o las pérdidas… pero nos falta a veces esa distancia crítica necesaria para juzgar lo propio con ojos nuevos. Por eso es tan necesaria la mirada de otro.
Si además la mirada procede de los ojos agudos y expertos de alguien a quien respeto y admiro por muchos motivos, y no sólo profesionales, creo que puedo sentirme más que satisfecha.

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05 Mar 10 20:22

Bueno XXS, siempre es difícil hacer comentarios sobre la obra de otro artista. Al menos, es para mí. Pero seing este cuadro siempre quise decir algo al respecto. Yo quería mucho antes de que se reunió de nuevo y esta vez que aprenden sobre sus dos vidas. Y hablando de estas vidas que tengo que admitir que estoy mucho más impresionado por su segunda aparición. A pesar de que el primero parece ser más homogénea. De los tres retratos se muestra aquí este es excelente y en muy alto nivel en comparación con los demás, en especial en comparación con el número uno. En cierto modo, me parece un poco un autorretrato de lo que podría anuncios mucho a la seriedad y la intimidad de la misma.

El que se muestra en el registro de estudio es muy prometedor a pesar de que yo no entiendo que el proceso divertido de la pintura. Ya vimos que Karen trabajado de esa manera - haciendo un dibujo al carboncillo completa debajo - que en mi opinión es una mezcla muy confusa de dibujo y pintura. Para distinguir entre el dibujo y la pintura, al menos desde Wölflin es un método estándar y de base en la historia del arte. No importa si algunas personas aquí entender esto o no. De todos modos, ¿por qué no acercarse a la composición o la forma en la pintura en sí? Así que paso a paso los trazos se vuelven más densos. De esta manera los dos métodos se mezcla más ecológica en uno y el mismo medio. Está bien, pero yo no soy profesor.

No sé si se puede hacer nada con esto. Al menos espero que usted pueda comprender esta clase de español. Mirando hacia el futuro de la reunión de nuevo.

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05 Mar 10 20:31

Oh, mejor debería ser: „Pero al ver este cuadro siempre quise decir algo al respecto.“

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05 Mar 10 20:55

Okay, okay, maybe you understand it better this way:

Well XXS, it’s always difficult to comment on another artist’s work. At least it is for me. But seeing this painting I always wanted to say something about it. I wanted it long before we met again and this time learning about your two lives. And talking about these lives I have to admit that I’m much more impressed by your second apparition. Even though the first one seems to be more homogeneous. Of the three portraits shown here this one is outstanding and on quite a higher level compared with the other ones, in particular compared with number one. In a way it seems to me a bit of a selfportrait what might ad a lot to the seriosity and intimacy of it.

The one shown in the studio log is quite promising even though I do not understand that funny process of painting. I already saw that Karen worked that way – doing a complete charcoal drawing underneath – which in my opinion is a very confusing mixture of drawing and painting. To distinguish between drawing and painting at least since Wölflin is a standard and basic method in art history. No matter if some people here understand this or not. Anyway, why not approaching the composition or form in paint itself? So that step by step the strokes would become more dense. This way the two methods would mix more organic in one and the same medium. Okay, but I’m no teacher.

I do not know if you can do anything with this. At least I hope you can understand this kind of Spanish. Looking forward of meeting you again.

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05 Mar 10 21:58

Oops, checking out the studio log again I see that you worked just the way I thought would be appropriate. Oh oh how embarrassing. This at least is proof that I am totally uncapable of writing comments. I’m soooooo sorry.

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05 Mar 10 22:58

After saying that you have really impressed me with your Spanish comment, and since I have been alluded again for my drawing , in Raul’s painting, I have to say that in the end it is a similar start , it’s a drawing, the difference is that in my case I enjoyed doing the face so much that I almost finished it as such, and it wasn’t intended to be one, so I had to paint on it. In any case drawing something before you paint it, if it is not done with the help of a grid, for example, and specially if it is done in a big format forces you to work on it. You can draw with charcoal, or with the tip of a brush that makes no difference, or with pastel. I’ve worked directly with colours and nothing else in smaller formats, even in big ones too, but it takes more time and quite a lot more paint.
I guess that if you really think what you write you should not use outlines, or grids, just start straight from the tube, but you are attached to perfect proportions , so what you call “the appropriate way” is in the end just a variation of the same method, you just skip the pleasure of drawing “a mano alzada”.

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07 Mar 10 00:41

I can only say thank you, thank you very much for the effort you made to comment my work, even more because you took the task to translate it into Spanish. It’s really nice, although it is not necessary to do it in the future because to read English is easier to me than to write it.

You say that you do not know if I can do anything with your comment. I can only tell you, without having to write two pages to explain it, that you cannot imagine how much!

I agree with you. I'm more proud of the result of PRT.02 than the other two. PRT.01 was the first one of my second life -my only life now. It is a search, even tentative, but anyhow fascinating, I will not abandon it while I still go on discovering new things every day.( I will place the photos of the current state of PRT.05 at studio log. I think I am finding interesting thinks).

My intentions when I started the series were, on the one hand to feel myself free from the bondage of realistic modeling without sacrificing the volume and on the second to get the color free of the demands of realistic tradition without sacrificing figuration also. Can I be expressionist in color without being flat and impersonal?
Can I make a psychologically and absolutely individual penetrating portrait (figurative) without sacrificing the plasticity of the stroke and the beauty of the colors when they are left to play among themselves (expressionism and abstraction)? For me "three weeks left" is an important reference as well as some portraits of Jenny Saville. Perhaps the only problem I have to pass over are my limitations, myself and my other life.


The topic you mentioned on the theories of Wölflin is very interesting. When you read his book, you agree with them, particularly owed to the examples he chooses. The theories are useful orientation guides. But if they fossilized, they frighten us. When we arrived at the Faculty of Fine Arts some teachers demand to decide if we are drawers or painters,if we do line drawing or “pictoric” drawing... and when we look at Sorolla´s and Fortuny´s woks we wonder if they must to divide his heart that way.

I do not know if there is a single "appropriate method" to paint. I think there are only good or bad results. I agree on the importance of procedures and “that step by step that the strokes would become more dense”. I also agree “that in this way the two methods would mix more organic in one and the same medium”. I don’t think anyone is talking about drawing in the first place to paint then, because that only would be a colored drawing.
If we say drawing and painting come together, we all say the same thing. If someone starts from a charcoal, ink or diluted paint drawing, with highly detailed study of chiaroscuro or with no detail, or only contour lines ... all becomes anecdotal. The important thing is that you cannot apply color without drawing, with a brush, spatula, hand or whatever... and that the stroke shows us the drawer inside the painter.
But not, fortunately you aren’t a teacher, I have had and I still have a lot of teachers and no one was a master. The teacher degree is obtained, the master degree is conquered.
Looking forward of meeting you again.

PRT.03
PRT.03
PRT.03

PR.03

PRT.02
PRT.02
PRT.02

The screen matches all sizes. So I find it is very useful to afford an image which will reveal the real size –if not texture- of the pictures shown, as other artists have made here.

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27 Feb 10 21:26

I really do like this portrait and the one shown in the studio log. Well, my dear to be honest I tried a lot of texts on your work but dismissed them all. It’s too difficult for me or maybe I’m just too stupid. So please be patient and wait until I am in Madrid again. Then I will whisper into your ear how much I appreciate what you do.

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04 Mar 10 00:14

Thanks for your comment and sorry that I have not answered before. I have had a lot of things to do and little time to do them. Unfortunately the communication in English takes me some time, something terrible for someone as wordy as me. I promise to solve it.
But I would thank for your “promise of a comment”. I keep in mind your promise and I will demand a long and expert one. I think you are a master, like many people in this site think, and I'm sorry master, that implies some dues...

I appreciate it even more because I know you don´t use to express your opinion in terms of yes or not. In addition I feel myself in good company. Karen, a master of color in my opinion, knows how to make use of it with courage and sensitivity. Higgins, who can make places and everyday situations with an atmosphere and a light that makes them strange: in “Mother and Son ”we know what the mother is saying to his son, but when we listen we don´t heard anything...

Also, your comment is especially welcome now. You do not know how hard is to painting in the context in which I move. Painting becomes a heroic task. A resistance. That make us strong and stubborn.
But occasionally is helpful to obtain support from those who understand that “painting is much much more than adding some paint to a canvas”.

PRT.04
PRT.04
PRT.04

PRT.04

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07 Mar 10 04:08

whow, I’m impressed. Here’s something new emerging.

I always feel awkward when have to talk about painting in technical terms. Somehow I have the feeling that one cannot really put in cold words only what happens during the process of painting. Like it isn’t possible to catch sexual feelings with mere medical descriptions or the joy of eating delicious food with the vocabulary of the cuisine. When it comes to painting I get lost in feelings that have to do with pain or lust or something inbetween rather than drawing and painting.

The atmosphere during painting for me seems to be more similar to trying to get the shape, the consistence and scent of a lover’s body in the dark than of any kind of analysis. So thinking seems to take place in the eyes, hands and nose or say the bellybutton instead of the brain. Even though all this is guided by the brain or takes place in the brain of course but in such a moment this scientific knowledge seems to be mere theory.

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07 Mar 10 17:54

I totally agree with you. In fact, Lord Chandos's disease has been my own illness. It's the old pyrrhonic ἀφασία.

When I had read your comment I have remembered a wonderful little text, “The Lord Chandos´ Letter” by Hugo von Hofmannsthal - I guess you know it well. A young poet tries to explain to an old Lord Francis Bacon (Shakespeare himself perhaps) the reason why he has stopped writing poetry: "Abstract words, of which according to nature, the language has to make use to express any opinion, melt in my mouth like moldy mushrooms”.
I think is the same that Wittgenstein´s sentence: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber man muss schweigen”.

However when we try to put into words what actually is ineffable and untranslatable, we create a new field of sensations and pleasures, perhaps mentally, but no less enjoyable.

I hope we will talk about it in Madrid.

PRT.O5
PRT.O5
PRT.O5

PRT.05

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20 Apr 10 15:33

the new face in the studio-log, thr coloured version, iI like it just the unfinished way it is. very promising. But of course you have to finish it. by the way, it was sooooooooo great meeting you. And thanks a lot for all the help and hospitality. Big hug!

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20 Apr 10 21:17

Thank you, thank you very much for your encouragement, master. I do not know if I was eloquent enough, but your visit was so so nice to me. I had so much fun that I am prepared to repeat whenever you want. A big hug for you too.

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21 Apr 10 00:07

Umm, well, i would prefer not to be called "master". it makes me feel uneasy and is in no way appropriate. thanks a lot

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21 Apr 10 19:39

Discúlpame. Mi pobre inglés puede producir equívocos. Confío en que no te haya molestado la expresión. Escribo en español porque tengo poco tiempo -mañana temprano salgo para Lisboa.
En español la palabra maestro se refiere, como en inglés, a alguien que ha alcanzado un alto grado en el dominio de su técnica. Pero aquí, supongo que por extensión del lenguaje taurino, se aplica a pintores -además de a toreros-, con un sentido de respeto que implica más cercanía que reverencia. Si lo hubiera puesto con acento andaluz, “maeztro”, hubiera tenido el significado afectuoso que quería darle.
Prometo no volver a usarla y en desagravio traeré de Portugal una botella de “vinho verde” para brindar cuando vuelvas por estas latitudes.
Ah, gracias por la cura de urgencia de mi coche. No he querido quitarle los “puntos” porque así me gusta mucho más. Un abrazo!

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22 Apr 10 10:34

Well dear, don’t worry. Everything is okay. I can understand your intentions and you can understand mine. Isn’t that pretty? Have a nice time in Lisbon and be well. Thanks a lot and a big hug.

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05 Jul 10 22:50

beautiful work

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14 Jul 10 12:36

Thanks for your comment

PRT.07
PRT.07
PRT.07

PRT.07

LA CONGA
LA CONGA
LA CONGA

Dancing "la conga"

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17 Dec 19 23:50

I love "La conga"!