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Optical Unease, Epic Unease
Original title: Malestar óptico, malestar épico
1994
Acrylic and paper on wood
Dimensions: 120 x 175 cm
Reference: ACF0721
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This is an extremely complex work whose process of execution lasted almost a year, over which Gordillo evolved a rigorous, systematic photographic documentation, which in this case takes on an artistic quality, in which the photograph is presented as a parallel aspect to the painting to establish a new type of vibration.
Malestar óptico, malestar épico sums up the technical procedures and creative processes of Gordillo's work over the nineties: expansion and extension of the painting, construction through juxtaposition and addition of units, insertion of pre-prepared wefts through the use of collage, and repetition with variations of structures common to other works.
The work, done on paper mounted on wood, is composed of four panels which have been related one after the other in the studio. The starting point was the close relation between two of the panels (the second and fourth from the left), which are the continuation of a short series from 1994 which includes Espejismo con paisaje desolado, Espejismo con anticosas rojas, Espejismo con nieve amarilla and Espejismo con vibraciones rojas, works with which they share an identical formal structure and chromatic tension, though set in a more heightened chromatic vibration. The connection between the two panels, however, was not direct, through "plug-ins" or extensions, but interrupted by a slightly higher intermediate panel. As a nexus, Gordillo uses a silk-screen of his own which he has used as a background in other works. It has a regular weft of cells and has been subsequently manipulated with paint and glued onto a surface of muted tones. In the centre of this panel, on the silk-screen, there appears a roughly sketched head which, like the rat in La nieve es negra, indicates the need to include figurative elements in a decidedly abstract composition.
The unit on the far left is proposed as an extension, whose functions consist of breaking an excessively balanced symmetry and completing a fresco of distortions and fragmentations, of crosses and chromatic short circuits.
Moreover, this work is a clear, radical demonstration of the results of a careful process of chromatic gradations in acid, cold tones, typical of an anti-naturalist, artificial colour, close to the ranges of printers' inks or the digitalised colours of the computer screen. Meander structures also reappear, but now as backgrounds of wefts, allusions to a personal universe.
