Catálogo de la exposición - Fundación César Manrique

a cloth circle inside a triangle made of little sticks), whereas in others they are the
counterpoint, and yet others they constitute a comparison. But the echoing between one
and the other is always significant.
The theme of two convergent tracks, as in his early Estaciones de ferrocarril (very emblematic
paintings within his oeuvre as a whole), was to reappear as vectors formed by wooden rods,
and their syntax was to pose a problem equivalent to the problem of traditional
perspectives: the vanishing point, the horizon, a problem that likewise has to do with the
traditional Raphaelesque compositional triangle. Barcala abandoned the traditional system
that attempted to lend unity to the surface of a painting. Working with specific materials, it
would be thanks to his little sticks that he was to reach a synthesis.
Barcala avoided the massive use of tactile materials (favouring the tiny: little pieces of wood,
scraps of cloth or string, etc.) to create a more immediate relationship with the ideal data
(line, tone, colour - that are not things, that are not tangible -). The play on little rods, which
embodies geometry, interacts with the Informalist background. Splitting these two worlds
entails separating what is united, mutilating his work in favour of only one of the
components, and is indicative that it has not been fully understood. The two are,
furthermore, chained together by tone and colour: it is no coincidence that most of the
artist’s paintings and boxes are shaded in ochre in response to the frequent use of wood in
its natural colour (he only painted the wood when he needed to side-step that tonality for
expressive reasons).
In an interview he granted towards the end of 1980 he defined that period as follows: “As
conceptual work, with a sense of geometry, I - sometimes - try to use a minimum of paint
and incorporate all sorts of materials: cloth, string, wood, etc. For me, it’s natural to be in
a conceptual stream that produces a rationalised work without sacrificing emotion, which
is what matters most”.
And he added: “I express these relationships between ideas or the objects of human reason
through sensitive experience, principles endowed with a universal character - that is to say,
by means of a formal discipline with geometric features -. [...] I deliberately avoid cold
geometry in my work, but I do want freedom to be ordered around profound geometric
balance”.
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