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RAUL CONTI - Buenos Aires
https://www.instagram.com/raulcontioficial/ |
"I had a dream in colors (I was still a small child). I dreamt with rain and the wind carried the rain from side to side, carried it up and down, and down and up. The rain was full of colors, clear and dark colors. They were bright, movable and fresh like carefree laughter. I awoke surprised and realized that it was a colored dream. I did not tell it to anyone and remained in my conscience forever, kept it as a treasure.
As time goes by, one discovers roads almost forgotten from childhood, echoes of a reality perhaps dreamt, acquired in a vital stage when imagination is an unlimited field of liberty.
I am sitting in an armchair made of wood and leather, in front of a gentle fire: I am sitting in my place of work, my studio. All around me, wherever I look, on the walls, on the floor, the shelves, there are stretchers, canvases, paintings of every size, leaning one on top of the other. Without having counted them, I know that there are many.
From the large window, the light enters full over the canvas in which I am now working, leaning on the old easel. There is an odor of turpentine; in different clay jars are my tools (an infinity of brushes) and the colorful tubes all extended on the long and narrow table together with spatulas, rags and oils.
In a corner, a palette board, I use to mix colors. Nothing is simpler than a wooden board to mix colors…and there, it is where the mystery resides, where colors begin to be mixed and oils amalgamate; that simple board turns into an enchanted magic fountain. It surges from it the tender green sprout of willows, the dark and secret shadow of woodlands, rumors of rain and blue sky, flock of flamingos over the lake. Reed beds and bird songs and all the objects, beings and the atmosphere are tinted with colors. It is then when everything glows surrounded by a harmonious tonality, as if I was painting something eternal.
I am walking downstairs to the sculpture studio, I touch the hard woods, bronzes, marbles and irons and each one of them respond with different warmth. They are my materials and when I knock on them with my knuckles, they sound differently, each with their own voice. My hands wander over the lighted spine of a slow and tense curve. With a lively wind, an angle crashes into the light and enters the opaque shadow of a cavity.
A flock of bronze birds remained trapped in space and others flutter songs to the sun in an octagonal tree of hardwood.
In a maternity, like resonances of ancient cultures, a great oval and two spheres, the presence of a sign persistent in memory is pre-announced. With incisions, marks, and textures, I affirm my reality. With a sign I find a territory where surfaces and volumes, colors and forms, painter and sculptor are integrated. Life as a river that flows, time in space at one time, like when we were children….everything was eternal.
I have served two glasses of red wine, a beam of light falls over the translucent glass windows (a bit of burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, a touch of black and a flash of vermilion). Today like every day, we are celebrating".
Raul Conti