BIG BIRDS, LITTLE BIRDS, AND UGLY BIRDS…

The other day I sent a message to Pablo’s mobile saying: “I am thinking of the words of Juan Hernández Pijuan: When my paintings are full, I begin to search for the emptiness; when they are empty, I begin again.” This young painter (Barcelona 1979) has always been both flamboyant and detailed. His work has an element of pop art and a gives a lot of emphasis to colour. And now, in his second solo exhibition with us in Madrid, he has begun to experiment with empty spaces: rooms with ornate artworks, with nobody or very few people in them. The artworks are the doors and windows opening up on to a scene beyond; to drawn curtains, to an empty cityscape, to urban buildings, or to a city without a living soul as if the earth had swallowed them all up. I have always liked the empty spaces with their element of mystery that this painter creates. Rafael Pérez Hernando Madrid, September 2009