Miquel Barceló “L’Inassèchement” at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris

While I sleep or read, my paintings that lie on the floor dry slowly because of the humidity of the island. The time they take to dry is very important. The work may be finished but at times it’s like a puddle, everything can change in an instant.

I have been scuba diving for a very long time. When I work on large paintings on the floor, it’s as if I were free diving. I immerse. I make the right moves or at least I try. I hold my breath, I counterbalance the pressure… Then I come out blowing sea water through the snorkel…or as if…

This would be the tempo of my paintings; the successive minutes of holding my breath.

One might find similarities with other artists. Like with Seurat, the prolonged smear of a Conté pencil or the Morse writing brush, almost noiseless, held at 25° over the rough grain paper: tap-tap….taptaptap…tap…; or with Van Gogh the rhythm of trains arriving at a station in the provinces or in the suburbs, chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga. Tarataratara tarara; with Picasso, long sentences with abrupt endings: clapping and heel stomping like in the Seguiriyas… – Miquel Barceló

Photo Sabrina Tarasoff