Hipertextual

I agree with Leonora Carrington's reflection that giving explanations of painting is something gratuitous, because it intellectualizes something that is not really in the world of intellect. However, many years in the museum field make me a firm believer in the need, not to give explanations, but to contextualize works of art, and even more so, as is the case, exhibition projects. To bring close, to mediate, to intercede.

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#Hipertextual was born on Twitter. The initial purpose was the request made by the artist, Gabriela Martin (@GabiMartinArte), in an open call, asking anyone who felt like it to write a text by hand, photograph it and send it to her by private message. With all the texts received, with their literal content or with what they collectively and individually tell or inspire her, the artist promises to create a painting. Therefore, it is a project that begins in the virtual world and ends in the real world, combining the most traditional form of communication, handwriting, with new forms of communication, such as the social media platform Twitter, in a process that involves going from handwriting to typing on a computer, tablet or mobile device, and then back to handwriting again with the artist's brush. In this way, it combines the most simple, everyday or traditional with the now even simpler and more everyday form of communication, soon becoming even more traditional for some, particularly the younger generation. And all of this is to be transformed by that other language, the language of art, which is freer, wilder, more individual and expressive than any of the others.

 

Different messages arrived from many parts of the world. 38 Twitter users responded to the challenge (or I should say "we responded", since one of those texts is mine): the artist classifies and organizes them, which is a constant in Gabriela Martin's works, an almost obsessive compulsion to order the universe, classify it, establish groups, catalogue ideas or feelings, always in search of beauty, pursuing it, nurturing it, and reveling in it. Classifying the texts according to their themes, what they say, suggest, or simply inspire the artist, is how Gabriela's creative process begins. Individual and collective analysis; establishing connections, recognizing groups, common characteristics in some. And this was the most arduous, difficult task; without canvases, brushes, or ink, the artist only has semantics, logic, and philosophy as tools to grasp onto to build, to create. Months of reflection, conversation, and doubt ensued. Until gradually, order and grouping began to appear, relationships between the texts were established. After that, the canvas, pencil, Chinese ink, acrylic, brush, tools that Gabriela knows well and handles skillfully, with a refined technique and, above all, with burning passion, were incorporated.

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From that order, a work of art measuring 4.7 by 2.3 meters is created, in which all the messages, all the writings (sometimes a phrase, sometimes a few words) are represented, creating a complete universe that is captured in the artist's composition, forms, and colors. The messages are grouped together, brought together according to their content, meaning, and related to each other in a subtle but significant spatial arrangement. The work was there for a few days.

 

From there, the decomposition, the dismemberment of each sentence, of each idea, the whole is broken down into parts, which are now other units, and are reborn with their own life, as independent works, which the artist works on individually in a dialogue that results in each final work.

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To build in order to destroy. To build in order to deconstruct. To build in order to build again.

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I have been present from the beginning in this creative process. If Rosa Luxemburg said that those who do not move do not notice their chains, I could say that I have seen the artist in motion, becoming aware of her chains, pulling hard on them, breaking them over and over again, entangling herself in them to destroy them and fly; challenging herself, her limits, her abilities, her desires. Always with the terrible agony that comes with knowing a story that has not been told. Chillida said that the artist is the one who knows what he is doing, but in order for it to be worthwhile, he must jump that barrier and do what he does not know. All this process has been worthwhile, above all, because of the process itself, unknown, new, not completely defined, which has forced the artist to do something she had not done before: to jump the barrier, to do what she does not know.

 

Another constant in Gabriela's work: if she already masters it, if she already knows how to do it, she does not linger in her virtue, but launches herself to experiment with other paths, other techniques, other ideas, other proposals.

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#Hipertextual is experimentation; it is facing an unknown creative process; it is the abstraction of word and form; it is decomposition/order/recomposition.

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#Hipertextual is all of that, but above all, it is Gabriela Martin: honesty, creativity, courage, and love for art.