Joaquim Chancho Chancho

Fragment of a piece by Chancho called 100 Figures, in which he explores the many routes to abstract creation. In them, the importance that geometry has for him becomes apparent. He abandons symbolic character to concentrate on the study of colour, form, method and serialisation. His language aids him, perhaps, in speaking, via abstraction, of painting, his own world and creation. As he says, “In a painting, I do not understand a love for anything that is not a love for painting.”

The elimination of a complex colour scheme, demonstrates in this piece, a return to origins. A clearly constructive language makes its presence felt and interacts with the viewers’ perception of the limbo between two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality. Chancho tautens the limits of the perception of space. He simplifies by use of black and white the interaction to which we are subjected. Far from trying to understand the logic of the painting, we find ourselves perceiving, simply, pure abstraction.

The use of series is a constant in the work of Chancho. What apparently seem to be fractals make up the artist’s material universe, stripped of adornment. The lines, almost as therapeutic gesture, lead to an existential unity. Vibrations, imperfections, are the essential material of this piece. It is based, like many of his works, on successive sequences or elements that are virtually calligraphic. It is perhaps a representation of what he defines as the nature of the human species. “All we have learned is to multiply numbers and ourselves."

Work of great visual dynamism. Once again, Chancho’s strokes swing between calligraphy and gesture. The zigzags characteristic of his work display a dualism between the static and the agile. Diagonal in composition, his black “stripes” impact on a radical red tone. Some of these forms were already appearing in his drawings in 1969. Some of his works more contemporary with this one, such as Painting 80.21, Painting 08.18 and Painting 08.5, explore variations on this same concept in an almost obsessive manner. The mutations of colour and composition do nothing more than reformulate the idea that the artist faces up to in each work with meticulous preparation. And each section has been interiorised by means of repetition, practically eliminating chance and letting spontaneity become part of a meticulous and thorough process.

The work presents itself as an enigma. The strokes oscillate between sign and geometry. The colours are complementary and opposing, typical of the artist’s palette. The image is torn between pure abstraction and the recollection of the arable fields the artist contemplated as a child. Gesture swings between spontaneity and meticulous preparation. The drawing is achieved by the subtraction of material; less becomes more. It is perhaps a mirror. Two identical images, exact, but at the same time opposing and complimentary.