(born in Valencia in 1942)
Ariosto, 2014, signed, titled and dated on the reverse, oil, burlap and fabric collage on burlap, 170 x 170 cm, framed

Provenance:
European Private Collection (acquired directly from the artist in 2015)

Exhibited:
Reggio Emilia, L’Orlando Furioso. Incantamenti, passioni e follie: l’Arte Contemporanea legge l’Ariosto, Palazzo Magnani, 4 October 2014 - 11 January 2015, exh. cat. p. 267 with ill.

“I am just a narrator who comments on the history of painting in various ways, using new materials: it is like a game that consists of changing the code and the key to the artwork… Many of my colours, materials and textures are the product of relived experiences of other masters.
My painting involved much reflection.”
Manolo Valdés, quoted in C. de Albornoz, ‘Manolo Valdés’,
in Abc, 26 June 2005

The paintings that Valdés has created on burlap - using stitching onto different cloths, thick chromatic impasto, and high-quality pigments - resemble entangled roots similar to vines that, from a distance, take the form of a single image. This image may be difficult to grasp in its entirety, owing to its very thicket of cloths, tears, and dense colour and texture. When the eye tries to take it in, the image dissolves among the tears of the fabric, disappearing and denying its own coherence. One gets the feeling of having come across a dense colourful substance which is constantly undergoing change, navigating between moments of clarity and of dissolution. What is ever present owes little to a clear narrative, but rather more to a confusion of assembly and destruction, in which figures and references proliferate.

Valdés fragments, deconstructs and rebuilds at one and the same time, without it even being clear in which order these things happen. The same is true of his portraits, landscapes and still lifes. Everything becomes a mass of fragments that, in his hands, are eventually converted once more into a single image.

In the baroque jumble of deconstructed elements which make up Valdés' works, he does not so much conceal his use of different techniques and materials as offer, through them, proof of deliberate design. Observing the form of his compositions - with those outlines drawn on the canvas which are then obscured by his application of colour - the painted image takes shape from an accumulation of layers with the addition of sewn-on patches: whereas, in contrast, the image in his sculpture emerges from the cross-fertilisation of different sources, on occasion drawing on a historical figure such as Cranach or Matisse. Nevertheless, what then emerges and comes to life, in a different dimension and different language, is something else: it is Valdés' own version. And the texture that he achieves comes from opposing procedures - one accidental, the other deliberate and by means of a new technique: sewing.

Valdés’painting can lay claim to its own freely established identity because of the range of ideas that constitute his source material. The paintings themselves possess a tactile dimension, which speaks to the viewer's sense of touch. It goes beyond mere scale, such as one experiences with Chillida's sculpture, and offers a fountain of knowledge from the many layers of the artist's canvas. This combining of channels of expression opens up a third dimension of his work without abandoning those characteristics proper to visual stimulation. Details still contribute to the whole impression, and the artist's use paraphrasing substitutes for the role of memory.
Professor Kosme de Barañano, Miguel Hernandez University, Altea and the Basque Country University, Bilbao. Published in Manolo Valdés, Recent Work – Paintings & Sculptures, exh. cat. Marlborough Fine Art, London (10 June – 16 July 2016)