Ramon Herreros Herreros

Herreros highlights a section of the essay The light of the night by Pietro Citati, quoted below, which gives an idea of the artist’s fascination with human representation: “Sometimes, as we travel the world, prisoners of our own body like the oyster in its shell, we happen on a beautiful face. The apparition flashes and we see the supra-celestial Beauty in the image, similar to another one we had previously seen, resplendent on her sacred pedestal. The vision of the beautiful face leaves us disconcerted and perturbed: a shiver of true terror runs through us, like a novice when confronted with mysteries; any fears we have at that time pulsate in our spirit. We look at the beautiful earthly image and we worship it deeply; and if we were not scared that others would think we were crazy, we would offer it sacrifices.”

Ramon Herreros says portrait has been a genre that has always attracted him. This is surely down to the fact that even before he began his figurative period he was fascinated by the complex theme of the relationship between the model and the painter. In the portraits included in this exhibition, the models pose in the studio but not for a specific commission, thus excluding the social connotations that portrait as a genre has had throughout history. These paintings are perceived as intimate experiences between painting and model.

The atmosphere which Herreros’ models breathe in is the reality of the painting itself, a space where, apparently, there are no references. The model is the protagonist, and on the basis of her, the artist builds the surroundings, creating a purely pictorial background of colour; a background that is already intimately connected to him, evoking his abstract period and thus unifying his artistic career.

Most of the portraits are in a square format. The square has always held a powerful earthly symbolism due to its central symmetry; it is considered to be equilibrium and represents an orderly and stable world. The diagonals define a perfect order, a centre that aspires to compensate for the unbearable weight of a world in constant disorder. It is precisely this centre that is the place occupied by the figure of the model.

In Herreros’ portraits it is interesting to see how the studio is the stage for the deep emotions generated by every creative act. We do not intuitively sense or see the studio, just as we do not see a self-portrait of the artist. In these works, the artist’s past and present merge in a temporary dimension that is distinct from the exact chronological, abstract or figurative periods.

In these portraits we see how each face is the bearer of a story, each face is a map of dreams, thoughts, desires and emotions that have often been seen as an allegory of the passage of time.

If we review Herreros’ abstract period, we see that colour was the vital principle and geometry was the harmonic principle. These two principles are still evident in the portraits included in this exhibition. The geometric forms, without details, and colour as the absolute protagonist.

Herreros still enthusiastically remembers his early days when he started painting with a model and discovered the female body. A naked body that is repeated many times in the pieces that make up this exhibition. The strong influence from those years of adolescence awakened a deep interest in the figure of a woman and every so often, for example, the artist’s abstract paintings are complemented by taking photographs of nude women in front of his paintings.

In a text he wrote about Herreros’ art, Jordi Ibáñez Fanés emphasizes the fresco technique and the icon as two genres of the history of art that play a role in the artist’s work. Regarding fresco, the technique he uses is very revealing, given that he first covers the canvas in a thick layer of plaster, thus creating a surface akin to the texture of a fresco, which he subsequently paints onto with oils. By doing so he achieves an effect in the background that evokes twilight storms and a space where time stops.

As for the use of the icon, as Ibáñez Fanés affirms, its analysis offers the most secret and enigmatic interpretation of the artist’s work. The objects which invade the works and which often accompany his female nudes become an enigma that is hard to fathom. It is true that they emit a strange vibration that impregnates the whole artwork and unconsciously connects these icons with the human being. Our challenge is to find this relationship, or not.

Herreros represents the yearning of human beings to recover communion with nature by the presence of the tree, a symbol of natural equilibrium as it redirects its growth to adapt its structure to whatever difficulty or territory within which it must grow. The symbolism in the artist’s work appears precisely with the tree, a cosmic symbol and symbol of ancestry. It is the archetypal image of the centre of the world, and is sacred to and adored by primitive cultures. The artist seeks equilibrium by fusing the female figure with the tree. We can see this fusion in many ancient cultures and classical mythology – for example, the laurel and Daphne or the olive tree and Athena – always reaching the point of creative fantasy, through the archetypes, which are one of the highest values of humanity.