‘Paparolo’, a slow alchemist of matter
Manuel Barreiro (O Grove, 1951), better known as “Paparolo”, legitimises his work, exhibited at the College of Architects of Santiago de Compostela, with references to his own past and with the history of an evolution that, in order to provoke an emotion, has been gaining in intimacy and mysticism.
After graduating in Biological Sciences and teaching at the School of Arts in the Galician capital, his sights are set on the experimental path opened up by the avant-garde of the 20th century, in particular the work of Francis Bacon. The oppressive experience one feels when visiting a work by the British artist is perceived when we approach the “Climbing Man”, created in 1996.
He is a reptilian man, an object figure, isolated, stripped of the few pretensions he had left, locked in an oppressive cabin. It is necessary to avoid egocentric passions in order to acquire affections that prevent thought from closing in on itself, since the fears locked inside us constitute a prison. The pictorial work of the former is translated into the sculptural work of the latter. A work dependent on photographic series allows the planes to be strengthened, makes the figure project itself in space, occupying places in a movement that is not real. It is as if the artist were sculpting a moving photograph.
He disfigures the image to suggest lively forms in his expression. A good example is “Figura en ambiente de colour”, from 1999, where the author makes use of the flat coloured bands that the abstract expressionists liked so much, which here highlight the central image.
Selected spirits deviate from everyday images by altering the conventional order of certain parts of the whole; this is Baselitz’s style of unsettling the perception of a thing. Such is the case of a figure in “Paparolo” where the head does not follow the body in its attitude or uses a single piece giving full validity to everyday experience.
Paparolo’ is an independent artist. Enemy of haste, of that minute that has become high esteem for society. His motto is ‘little and easy’. Thus, his works come to public light after a long winter season. Like an alchemist of matter, he waits until it has undergone a sufficient lapse for its complete transmutation.
The works of this artist invoke Newton in the sense that they favour white light. Whether polished aluminium dominates his production, as an enhancer of shiny surfaces, or baked earth, the latter has been impregnated with a sufficiently illuminated white so that it cannot be hidden at night. As a very graphic example, there is ‘The lookout. Concentration camp’, a perennial symbol of the memory of time.
Fátima Otero Bouza, El Correo Gallego, 19 May 2000, review of the exhibition at the Colegio de Arquitectos de Galicia.
‘Paparolo’, a slow alchemist of matter
Manuel Barreiro (O Grove, 1951), better known as “Paparolo”, legitimises his work, exhibited at the College of Architects of Santiago de Compostela, with references to his own past and with the history of an evolution that, in order to provoke an emotion, has been gaining in intimacy and mysticism.
After graduating in Biological Sciences and teaching at the School of Arts in the Galician capital, his sights are set on the experimental path opened up by the avant-garde of the 20th century, in particular the work of Francis Bacon. The oppressive experience one feels when visiting a work by the British artist is perceived when we approach the “Climbing Man”, created in 1996.
He is a reptilian man, an object figure, isolated, stripped of the few pretensions he had left, locked in an oppressive cabin. It is necessary to avoid egocentric passions in order to acquire affections that prevent thought from closing in on itself, since the fears locked inside us constitute a prison. The pictorial work of the former is translated into the sculptural work of the latter. A work dependent on photographic series allows the planes to be strengthened, makes the figure project itself in space, occupying places in a movement that is not real. It is as if the artist were sculpting a moving photograph.
He disfigures the image to suggest lively forms in his expression. A good example is “Figura en ambiente de colour”, from 1999, where the author makes use of the flat coloured bands that the abstract expressionists liked so much, which here highlight the central image.
Selected spirits deviate from everyday images by altering the conventional order of certain parts of the whole; this is Baselitz’s style of unsettling the perception of a thing. Such is the case of a figure in “Paparolo” where the head does not follow the body in its attitude or uses a single piece giving full validity to everyday experience.
Paparolo’ is an independent artist. Enemy of haste, of that minute that has become high esteem for society. His motto is ‘little and easy’. Thus, his works come to public light after a long winter season. Like an alchemist of matter, he waits until it has undergone a sufficient lapse for its complete transmutation.
The works of this artist invoke Newton in the sense that they favour white light. Whether polished aluminium dominates his production, as an enhancer of shiny surfaces, or baked earth, the latter has been impregnated with a sufficiently illuminated white so that it cannot be hidden at night. As a very graphic example, there is ‘The lookout. Concentration camp’, a perennial symbol of the memory of time.
Fátima Otero Bouza, El Correo Gallego, 19 May 2000, review of the exhibition at the Colegio de Arquitectos de Galicia.