Texto: Elisa Alvarez Delgado
Foto: G.BlaskyStudio
Espacios compartidos
Han pasado 30 años desde la primera exposición de Jesús Lara Sotelo. El tiempo escuda a la memoria tanto como para permanecer atentos a los cambios y variaciones que han tenido lugar, continuamente, en la depuración de su lenguaje visual y en la síntesis que proporciona su modo de ver y entender el mundo.
Si en aquel momento, sus búsquedas en el legado de las vanguardias artísticas del siglo XX hallaron un resorte estilístico entre la abstracción, la figuración y la voluntad instalativa, hoy ese diapasón se ha extendido a un cuerpo artístico tan fraccionado como unitario, tan dilatado como contraído. De modo que los síntomas y reminiscencias de un género a otro, los contagios, las continuas apelaciones interdisciplinarias nunca han sido unilaterales: los dibujos anatómicos y la indagación en el ser humano anunció la proyección espiritual del retrato, la consistencia del lenguaje poético participó de la abstracción, la escultura rozó las fronteras de lo instalativo, y los paisajes, esos primeros paisajes, no buscaron transformar, sino participar de la cerámica.
Sotelo se ha servido de todos los medios y recursos para sus indagaciones. En lo que equivale a la cerámica, motivo primordial del texto, es posible detectar tres etapas cardinales que mucho le deben a este arsenal pictórico.
En un primer momento (2006-2008) los motivos decorativos de una pieza como Abstracción (2006) retoman la gestualidad de los paisajes, cuando con la espátula, el artista mancha e impregna en el lienzo la masa de color, crea surcos, obtiene relieves, texturas y superpone los tonos obteniendo terceros. Muy similar ocurre con Lunar (2008), que parece traspolar un fragmento de paisaje en un momento de luz, como los impresionistas decimonónicos, en toda la riqueza de color que le permitió al artista ajustar la sensación del volumen mediante matices lumínicos.
Con Idolatría (2008) y Ánfora (2006), la naturaleza no se representa, se evoca conceptual y sensorialmente. Se entabla así una nueva sensibilidad dada a las incrustaciones en el volumen esmaltado,de piezas de cristal y silicona que responden simbólicamente a las tensiones mismas de la obra y a las inquietudes artísticas del autor, en el que palpitan los efectos abstraccionistas de su lenguaje visual. Independientemente de tales analogías, las cerámicas de esta etapa son formas terminadas, cerradas en sí, corpóreas, y adquieren la organicidad de la estructura.
El segundo momento viene dado a partir de la influencia del arte oriental en el trabajo de Lara Sotelo, y de sus prácticas paralelas en la filosofía budista y la meditación. La serie abstracta Shangai (1998) anunciaba estos acercamientos a mayor hondura.
La serie de cerámicas realizadas en el año 2010 y expuestas en Supremacía del éxtasis, muestra personal de Sotelo en el Memorial José Martí, revela señales de un producto maduro, contenido, fuente de una unidad integracional que indaga sobre las alternativas del hombre en sus circunstancias concretas sin reducirse a un marco de relaciones identitarias específicas, culturales o sociales. Piezas como Ánfora, Lago y Plato invitan al silencio de la contemplación de un universo en equilibrio, ni nacional ni foráneo, simplemente artístico, donde la serenidad dignifica la espiritualidad del hombre y las energías compartidas con su naturaleza interior.
Sobre el fondo negro, Lara utiliza empastes de color, líneas que serpentean, simbologías, chorreados a lo Jackson Pollock. Esta tendencia a los diversos modos de expresión creadora y a la multifocalidad del arte, es lo que le ha permitido crear una especie de“collage visual” que reúne cerámica y poesía en un mismo objeto artístico. La caligrafía de la palabra se moldea a la arcilla, coexiste con el trazado de las formas minuciosamente dibujadas con un fin expresivo y con una libertad donde los medios pictóricos han adquirido su propia fuerza conviviendo en estos espacios compartidos.
El tercer y último momento se sitúa en el año 2015, con la cerámica realizada a propósito de la exposición Seda y acero, que tuvo lugar en el Museo de la Danza.
La cualidad de esta serie viene dada a partir de una simplificación o reducción progresiva de los motivos icónicos, creando una sensación por momentos de provisionalidad, de objeto inacabado. Casi pudiera decirse que en lugar de ir del proceso al acabado, el artista prefiere sumirse en este transcurso factual, participar de él, abandonarse a la lascivia. Su método no es vestir, sino desnudar, y aquí los elementos formales se corresponden con la proyección conceptual que tiene lugar en la escritura aforística de libros como Mitología del extremo (2010) y El Escarabajo de Namibia (2016).
El aforismo, como la cerámica, alcanza su belleza en la sobriedad de las formas precisas, en la inmediatez del impacto. Ambos, se van desarrollando poco a poco en constante gradación, encadenados el uno al otro con efecto creciente. Y así se revela esta realidad plena, puramente sensual, satisfecha de sí misma, desnuda en su regocijo. La obra de título homónimo, Seda y acero, subraya estas cualidades, donde descubrimos más el sentimiento que la vibración, más la sensualidad que la voluptuosidad.
Han pasado 30 años desde la primera exposición de Jesús Lara Sotelo. El tiempo reivindica toda asociación previamente concebida y quién sabe si mañana esta cerámica encauzará novedosas obras maestras, porque Lara se mantendrá operando sin estrechamientos en el campo visual, con vista hacia todas las direcciones, apoderándose del mundo real en su multiplicidad, y expresándolo mediante un lenguaje flexible y abierto a todas sus combinaciones.
Shared spaces
It has been 30 years since the first exhibition of Jesús Lara Sotelo. Time shields the memory so much as to remain attentive to the changes and variations that have taken place, continuously, in the purification of its visual language and in the synthesis that provides his way of seeing and understanding the world.
If at that time, his searches on the legacy of the artistic avant-garde of the twentieth century found a stylistic spring between abstraction, figuration, and installation, today that diapason has been extended to an artistic body as divided as unitary, as long as contracted.Thus, the symptoms and reminiscences, the contagions and the continuous interdisciplinary appeals have never been unilateral from one gender to another: the anatomical drawings and the investigation in the human being announce the spiritual projection of the portrait, the consistency of the poetic language participates in the abstraction, the sculpture borders on the boundaries of the installation, and the landscapes did not seek to transform but participate in the ceramics.
Sotelo has used all means and resources for his inquiries. As far as ceramics are concerned, it is possible to detect three cardinal stages that owe much to this pictorial arsenal.
In the first period (2006-2008), Lara is at the end of powerful alcoholism. Like a passing cloud that disappears and stings the soul to keep it in suspense, Sotelo sought his spiritual harmony. He, threatened by the specter of pain against which he rebelled, placed the ideal of virtue as master and lord of the spirit world, and thus this world became a superior one.
The subsequent self-consciousness that gave vigor and depth to reality, influenced a constructive ethical force that reconciled the artist, -previously with the genre of landscape and now with ceramics- in bonds of union with the forms and conceptions of the cultural heritage, but at the same time creating a starting point towards a “new style” in its own way.
Like the samurai tea masters who used to inspire their own visual motifs in the ceramic vessels, Lara, in a first stage, creates a very peculiar visuality. He retakes the gestures of his landscapes when with the spatula he stains and impregnates the mass of color, creates grooves, obtains reliefs, textures and superposes the tones obtaining third parties (Abstraction, 2006). Something very similar happens with Lunar (2008), which seems to transpose a fragment of landscape in a moment of light, like the nineteenth-century impressionists, in all the richness of color that allowed the artist to adjust the sensation of the volume through luminous nuances.
With Idolatría (2008) and Ánfora (2006), he does not try to represent nature, but to evoke it conceptually and sensorially. Thus, a new sensibility is established, given to the incrustations in the enameled volume, of glass and silicone pieces that respond symbolically to the very tensions of the work and to the artistic concerns of the author, in which the abstractionist effects of his visual language pulsate. These are, in a general sense, finished forms, closed in themselves, corporeal, which acquire the organicity of the structure.
The second moment comes from the definitive assimilation of the ancient oriental traditions, previously exercised by the artist in practices of martial arts and combat sports. This use of the legacy in its late form -given that it has had its splendor at other times in history and that, for our idiosyncrasy, supposes a newborn, almost informed language-,like the Go board game, the insertion in philosophy Buddhist and in meditation, reactivated even his most latent capacities.
The anthropological meditation that can be seen in the abstract painting series Shanghai (1998) announced this inclination towards greater depth.
The ceramics made in 2010 and exhibited in Supremacía del éxtasis, Sotelo’s personal exhibition at the José Martí Memorial, reveal signs of a mature, reserved product, source of an integrative unit that explores the alternatives of man in his concrete circumstances without be reduced to a framework of specific identity, cultural or social relationships. Pieces such as Ánfora, Lago and Plato invite us to contemplate in silence a universe in balance, neither national nor foreign, simply artistic, where serenity dignifies the spirituality of man and the energies shared with his inner nature.
On the black background, Lara uses fillings of color, lines that meander, symbologies, Jackson Pollock´s drippings. This tendency to the various modes of creative expression and to the multifocality of art is what has allowed him to create a kind of “visual collage” that brings together pottery and poetry in the same artistic object.
The calligraphy of the word is molded to the clay, it coexists with the drawing of the meticulously drawn forms with an expressive purpose and with freedom where the pictorial media have acquired its own strength. In this immense sea of shared spaces comes the literary conscience and the artistic feeling fortified by spirit and culture, so that, in another field of authors, the presence of a samurai who does not abandon his katana, Miyamoto Musashi stands out. A man of combat, a master of painting, of metal work, dedicated to calligraphy and writing, obtains, like Sotelo, an organic, harmonious totality in accordance with a state of serene satisfaction where a single trait of the spirit illuminates the whole body, as generalized forms of the intellect.
The third and last stage is located from 2015, with the ceramics made for the exhibition Seda y acero, (Museum of Dance), to the most recent exhibition,the retrospective Fuego y meditaciones (Gallery Teodoro Ramos Blanco, 2017).
The quality of this series comes from a simplification or progressive reduction of the iconic motifs, creating a sensation for moments of provisionality, of an unfinished object. It could almost be said that, instead of going from the process to the end, the artist prefers to sink into this factual course, participate in it, abandon himself to lasciviousness. His method is not to dress, but to strip, and here the formal elements correspond to the conceptual projection that takes place in the aphoristic writing of books like Mitología del extremo(2010) andEl Escarabajo de Namibia (2016).
The aphorism, like ceramics, reaches its beauty in the sobriety of the precise forms, in the immediacy of the impact. Both are developing little by little in constant gradation, chained to each other with increasing effect. And this reveals this full reality, purely sensual, satisfied of itself, naked in its rejoicing. The work of homonymous title, Seda y acero, emphasizes these qualities, where we discover more the feeling that the vibration, more the sensuality than the voluptuousness.
“Beyond the plastic intention, the torrent of the dancing lines extends to the very shape of the piece, making the artistic art object a work of art, whose richness is achieved through stimulating, pleasant, urgent contours that refer to an aesthetics of the erotic”, says the art historian Deney Terry. Indeed, ceramics are impregnated with sensuality by the originality of the often oval and curved, asymmetric and irregular shapes of a monochrome enamel full of strength and vitality.
It has been 30 years since the first exhibition of Jesús Lara Sotelo. Time claims any association previously conceived and who knows if tomorrow this pottery will channel novel masterpieces because Lara will keep operating without narrowing in the visual field, with a view towards all directions, seizing the real world in its multiplicity, and expressing it through a flexible language and open to all combinations.
Elisa Alvarez Delgado
Licenciada en Historia del arte
