Page 75 - Ruth Morán

undergo a journey”24, her subconscious webs radiate brightly in the darkness; her energetic and shapeless25 lines draw the passionate realm of possibility
24. Juan Fernández Lacomba: “Ruth Morán: de la expresión a la superficie” in Ruth Morán. Tejido Horizonte, Junta de Extremadura, Consejería de Cultura, Mérida, 2006.
25. “Sometimes I would think about things that have no form. There are things, piles, loads, contours, or volumes, which only exist in one way: we are aware of them, but we don't know them; we can't reduce them to a single rule, or infer what the whole looks like by analyzing one of its parts, nor reconstruct them by using reasonable actions. We are free to modify them. They only occupy an area in space... Saying that these things have no form does not mean that they don't have a shape, but only that there is nothing we can do to replace their shape with a clearly recognized act or outline. In fact, these shapeless forms only leave behind the memory of a possibility... just like a series of musical notes pressed randomly do not make a melody, a puddle, a rock, a cloud, or a fragment of the coastline are not things that can be reduced” (Paul Valery: “Degas Danza Dibujo” in Piezas sobre arte, Ed. La Balsa de la Medusa, Madrid, 1999, p. 43).
How to do something Javier Rubio Nomblot
The soul creates incessantly and it devours its creatures incessantly. It continually brings other lives into being, engendering its heroes and its monsters”.
Paul Valéry
Regarding that certain “something” we see in the work of some artists but not in the work of others, there is very little to say (in general, painting should communicate that which can only be communicated through painting); but it doesn’t matter: if we can ever ascertain that this undefinable quality exists and that it’s actually in a painting- because we can sense or perceive it in some way- it means we have arrived at the right place. Thereisnoneedtogofurther:“perhaps one should be content, not by making art acces- sible, but by being accessible to art”, Hoffman dictated1, giving up the conventional attempt to “explain” art and choosing instead –in my opin- ion- to express his own fascination with it.
1. Werner Hofmann. Fundamentals of modern art. 1987.
The truth of the matter is that Ruth Morán’s work has always been fascinating and convincing – as well as surprising- : from the very begin- ning this writer was seduced by it, and so was her gallery director, Angeles Baños, as well as art collectors and juries. And all this when it was still impossible to perceive in her work anything beyond a perceptive and relevant reflection on some of the formal qualities of painting, or on the way artists treat a canvas nowadays, or on the meaning of a certain action. After all, what this artist is currently doing is intimately and clearly related to the concept of doodling or scrib- bling (that is, with the prelude to a drawing); but, at the same time, this exquisite way of painting sets itself clearly apart from research done on doodling (and on children’s drawings, the draw- ings of lunatics, or people on drugs) which was carried out by surrealists, bruts or informalist artists (especially German and French2). Her work is abstract expressionism, but only up to a certain point; and it’s not even really abstract in the sense that her mesh of webs, weaving and in- tertwining threads is made up of specific, recogniz- able elements: if her work continues in this line and develops accordingly, perhaps we will have to start referring to it as impure abstraction.
Artists undoubtedly mean to fascinate us (War- hol even mentioned that someone had once tried to buy his aura) and spread their enthusiasm, or at least communicate their concerns; thus, this should also be the task of those who talk about art; and subsequently, this conversation should also indicate a way (of thinking, for example), which is always an extension of the piece. This message is becoming more and more essential in art; not just because a work of art lacks meaning without its corresponding audience (or recipi- ent), but because theory claims that “art” is not an invisible, mysterious “essence”, or that cer- tain “something” that floats among the airwaves and slides sporadically on a person or object: “There isn’t a single condition or set of condi- tions required for something to be considered art: there isn’t a single essence which is shared
2. “She is more like a European artist than an American ar- tist, in that first sense, concerned with the lyrical intention of painting in an automatic way, letting instinct take over, as opposed to being drawn to the exclusive poetic function of language, to the factors and elements which painting norma- lly contemplates”. Juan Fernández Lacomba. Ruth Morán: de la expresión a la superficie. 2006.
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