Pinturas no pintadas [Unpainted pictures]

Carlos Suárez (Avilés, 1969) is surely one of the most active — and most valuable — of the young Asturian artists; a tireless explorer of new forms, techniques and procedures, he has been devoting special attention to landscape for quite some time. To claim such an affiliation at a time when the traditional genres of painting seem to have disappeared altogether might seem somewhat reactionary; yet it only confirms the rigour of his explorations and his particular interest in adapting new languages to past attitudes. Like so many others, he captures what he sees and, after feeling it, reveals through experimentation what he considers, at each moment, its purest expression.

For about three years he has found in paraffin — and occasionally in virgin wax — a suitable material for describing “his landscape”, a landscape that comes more from the soul than from the body, more from the hidden than from the superficial, more from the silent than from the strident, more interpretation than imitation. That is why the figures that humanise his wide voids seem, in their solitude and by pure paradox, to enlarge them rather than contain them. On another occasion I described Carlos Suárez’s landscapes as landscapes of the soul; now it seems fairer to call them fantastic. That is how, to sum up, we can tell apart his theory and, with it, his practice: “Anyone can learn to paint, better or worse, with a little technique and taking a natural image as a model; but only someone whose gifts drive him imperiously is in a position to create the fantastic.” The sentence is by Emil Nolde, an artist who sought the spirit of things; an artist who was also, many years ago and admittedly for very different reasons, the author of “Unpainted Pictures”. In any case it seems clear that genres do not die; rather, they have been languishing in the hands of clumsy, insensitive craftsmen — among whom, fortunately, Carlos Suárez is not to be found.

On the occasion of the exhibition Paisajes de parafina. El Corte Inglés, Oviedo, 2001