Playing with paper

   Paper has always played a key role in my work as a painter.In the beginning there were drawings of animals and very strange creatures obsessively worked with India ink,invariably in black and white lines(late 50s). Later on, there came a congenial association with the delicate and transparent Japanese hand made rice paper. From 1957 to 1968, I worked with paper in this way, printing from woodblocks,using a bamboo spoon to press down paper, ink, the woodcut or the linocut. The figures and forms were sketched in just any piece of paper: napkins, calendars, note pads, photos, real paper, using pen, color pencils, or graphite to jot down sketches, and doodles that mingled with phone numbers, peopleīs names, messages, invoices, adresses, appointments, schedules, prices of things, ideas, memos, thoughts, written day dreamings...

   Uncontrolled, the unconscious hand drew meanders, occupying written spaces, disrupting the linearity of phrases, names,numbers...An invasion of color...As watercolors,sumi ink and gouaches spread themselves on paper,words and numbers turned into paintings and drawings; tiny little "windows" showing forms,lines and colors were trasnsformed into huge oil canvases.In this phase I first rendered the sketch,then the result with oil colors. Today,a lot more loose,the drawing is at the same time sketch and final work, deprived of conscious intentions:no motives that can be verbally explained, no reason at all. It is purely emotional,unintentional,it stems from the central nervous sistem,free of any preconception or aesthetic theories that explains it; it precedes conscious thought.

   The opposite of Conceptual Art.

   Actually ,these works are totally devoid of meaning or purpose, except that of existing on paper. They have no top or bottom, right side or left side,there is no figure or background;they have no center. Isnīt the Universe something of the sort?!

   They happen on the paper surface, without any story telling, nor cause or effect...They are neither means for the communication of intelectual proposals, nor are based on aesthetic concepts or "clever"visual ideas... They do not pretend to be intelligent,ecological,sociological or political:they do not become involved:they neither attack, nor defend,or mirror. Paper allows me the chance to play meaningless games with colors,lines,movement,gestures.The drawing is in itself the idea and the concept. There is nothing behind these drawings. They are not aimed at representing principles, things,people, animals, landscapes,dreams,fantasies,social comments on the justice or injustice of human conditions,words or objects.They are just what you see:colors, lines and gestures, thatīs all.

   Ultimately,this is all there is to these drawings. They are atemporal; they transform the past and confess an assumed and admitted incoherence.

   In these moments of intimate dialogue with the paper I allow myself a certain lightness... no "serious"commitments, purposelessness,a nonintention... Every time someone asks whether I have been working I reply: "No,not really "working":All Iīve been doing is draw with dry pastels,oil pastels and sticks, color pencils, graphite, oils and turpentines: Iīve been playing with my hands on sheets of paper..."