The word language has not been included accidentally to this exhibition by the Chilean-Finnish artist Pablo Riestra. He has developed a fruitful practice in his search for painting and its processes. In this practice he dives into fast drawing, color testing, painting and repainting until he hits a complex and vibrant come out, detached from any mimesis.
Pablo is a Chilean-Finnish artist who has spent half of his life in Chile and Finland, going back and forth between these two countries. He arrived in Finland with his parents and siblings when he was 12 years old. He had to learn not one but several languages at the same time and to adapt to a new culture: another way of seeing and communicating. Riestra has merged all these experiences with his art. Through observation the artist found a noted reference source recorded on paper. The ideal excuse for calligraphy and handwritten translations, sketches and painting tests.
This is when the artist´s logbooks become essential. Writing down ideas usually appears when traveling; painting processes taking form under handwritten notes; translation exercises between seen objects and what is drawn of them. Not forgetting the action of preserving what usually gets lost between moving landscapes and ephemeral thoughts; shaping a starting point to explore creativity which will lead to a deepening in his paintings and his style.
The exchange and passing method from Castilian to Finnish, from French to Castilian – as also from and to English – all together constructs a unique net of meanings for the artist. It’s a formal system equivalent to Pablo´s artistic method. It all begins from a pencil sketch to an aquarelle brush; from the first acrylic layer to the last with oil color; the artist translates and shapes his own sign system, repeating, erasing, sketching, painting and repainting until the outcome is the right one.
Two traditional categories – drawing and painting – become eclectic through the artist's eye. These practices don´t deny the contradiction nor the distance of the means, techniques and/or their motives, on the contrary they take responsibility and praise them. The line may appear strong and distinct in some sketches while it might disappear between an abstraction of two colors. On some papers we can see shades in different arranged lines while on the canvas these lines merge with acrylic and oil colors between layers. Both decontextualization and discordance have been developed soundly through landscapes, portraits, flowers and birds as subjects.
Many times, non-fixed objects appear floating. As if the paintings with their plane backgrounds belonged to a striking idea due to their moving chromatism, or to a Pop Art dream. There lies a way to saturate the ultimate representational desire. On the other hand, the flying birds and the presence of a flower detached from their respective context, evoque the Haiku poetry from the ancient Japanese Art. A way to illustrate the simple moments of life which bring joy to the humblest spirits. Riestra turns these two forms of art into one making them communicate, complementing them with an elated language which explodes into color; a love gesture which amends – through painting and drawing – the contradiction inhabiting our imagination and each of us.
