“Chauvet, Africa, still lifes, termites, masks or skulls, everything is linked
like archetypes of humanity. For me, it is my everyday, my material and
thought for each day. I trace maps of geographies that link all these
worlds together.”
(Miquel Barceló in E. Mezil, ed., Terramare: Miquel Barceló, Collection
Lambert en Avignon, Arles, 2010, p.241)
Throughout his oeuvre, Miquel Barceló has employed the materials
that allow him to create the richly textured, expressive canvases highly
evocative of the surface of the earth. À Livorno, from 2007, is a beautiful
example of the artist’s gift to produce work that is abstract, yet at the
same time highly referential. It allows the viewer to be guided in their
imagination by those reference points, be they a stone, plant, fruit, or
a skull, to contemplate the landscape and its origins. The title À Livorno
indicates the place in Italy that inspired the artist and in this painting
the sea port of Livorno is beautifully depicted by the pebbles set against
the white and yellow background evoking the sunlit landscape and sea.
In the artist’s own words: “I like the phenomenology of painting to look
likenature”.
À Livorno is painted in the traditional technique of the artist which
remains a key aspect of Barceló’s practice. He has not succumbed to
the new media, but instead prefers to explore and further develop more
conventional materials from the earth itself: “Video camera, digital
camera… actually I find it a bit pathetic. I really like to find my materials.
Also, I always think of the modernity of thought, not of technique” (in E.
Mezil, ed., Terramare, 2010, p.236).
CTA_