2007-03-12 -- The Cuban Painter Carlos Comesañas has always been in a class of his own, a kind of a novel character we could call it, always refusing to bend to tendencies and trends. In an art scenario fill to the brim with repetitions he keeps inventing himself over and over. Many criticized him harshly alleging a lack of personal style but the same also could be said of Picasso, and even using a broader stroke to the very Impressionist themselves. Unfortunately it can not be said of the majority of the modern painters that define themselves as soon as they find a formula that works. Creativity is the process of creation and requires as a basic condition to be creative, and that is what we see in Comesañas work. He seeks constantly new ways to express himself with texture, color and shapes.

 

It seems that he has embarked in a never-ending journey, in a time machine of his own, traveling back and forth in search of that uniqueness that separates the masters from the rest changing suddenly from one painting to the next to the point that it seems impossible at times to believe they belong to the same artist, and his changes disconcert those that try to establish some order in the artistic world, thing this by the way totally absurd in my opinion. Who wants order to be imposed to the creating process? Perhaps we are in the midst of an Industrially Artistic Revolution imposed by those who digest for us our concept of the art. Otherwise what other reason could there be for that tenacious and pervasive intent for uniformity. Or possibly the Condominium Concept so popular in America today should extend to the canvases we hang in our walls. That is not, by the way, such a bad idea: The same houses, painted the same color, with similar paintings in the living room. Aldous Huxley sure would be pleased to see his predictions become reality.

 

Anytime that we see the work of a painter we see similarities, influences; sometimes the list could go on for quite a while, not in this case. Comesañas has no influences and at the same time posses them all. He is the embodiment of the old, the present, and the new. Even when he ventures into the past he does it not by copying it, instead he recreates, the same way a great movie director decides to enhances history not by lying but by showing what could have escaped to the untrained eye, choosing the colors, the angle, the dialogue with that insight that only could possibly come from a real genius in tune with those feeble vibrations that they and only they can hear. And that is what Comesañas does letting us feel what never was said but wanted to be said. Letting us view new ways to see things. His paintings don’t impose, suggest, they don’t press they guide. They nudge you to enter into an ever-changing world of magic and colorful fog. And once there what we don’t see surprisingly becomes the key to our understanding and then the catharsis of our soul began. There is in him a new language always different, that take us a while to penetrate but that once penetrated suddenly becomes irresistible. To be in front of one of his paintings is to relieve of burden that rebellious soul that lies within us and that modern society so much tries to contain.

 

In his work we see a well honed technique, a sure stroke, a buttery flow of the medium definitely sensual, a mature and talented colorist with impeccable taste, a superb draftsmanship free of hesitations and a powerful and brilliant mind with lots to say and ample lungs screaming at us: Wake up you are being led by the nose like cattle to the slaughterhouse!

 

In one brief interview Comesañas said, and I totally agreed: I would rather be right and march straight into hell that to follow a bunch of fools to heavens. I hope he find a way to be right without burning himself too much.