ANTONIO GONZÁLEZ

With Each promise was just one promise more, Antonio González presents a series of 10 small-format works as part of our T-10 format. In this series, he deconstructs the act of painting, exploring repetition, construction, deconstruction, and movement.

“Antonio González invites a direct encounter with the materiality of painting, emphasizing experience and perceptual shifts. His work embraces pauses and fragments, appearing spontaneous yet carefully composed with a limited set of recurring elements. By repeating and insisting on these forms, he delves into the essence of painting itself. These quick, instinctive images do not shy away from imperfections but rather highlight the protrusions of the layered painting process, revealing the dynamic nature of image construction.”

— Antonio González. Cuando ver es perder.

David Barro

‘T-10’ brings together 10 small works, each contributing to a unique narrative, displayed on the ground floor of our Barcelona Sèneca gallery. The format pays homage to the iconic Barcelona metro ticket, which offered 10 journeys, reflecting a sense of movement and progression.

“As is often the case in Antonio González’s work, the process is stretched almost to the point of obsession, dissecting each variation of a movement one by one, breaking down the act of painting to such extremes that the result feels like a statistical achievement, creating a disconcerting sensation. These paintings on cardboard might be reminiscent of chess, where each move is studied step by step based on fixed patterns but always leaves room for surprise, for mistakes caused by fatigue. The implied lightness of the cardboard support mentally clashes with the sense of gravity in these small compositions, making it easy to imagine each one weighing as much as its size in lead. Antonio González’s Cardboard Paintings recall the weights of a circus strongman—seemingly unbearable, with a presence that affects everything around them. The act of holding them provokes a childlike grimace from the viewer. What matters is not discovering the trick but rather that, even knowing it’s a trick, it still works. In any case, I echo Teo Soriano’s words when he states that the point is to paint with honesty, even when what one creates may or may not be called painting.”

— Antonio González’s Cardboards.

Ángel Calvo Ulloa