Antonio González Biography

The world we live in is a nonsense. I have long since come to terms with it. I live in constant contradiction, uncomfortable because I don’t know how to be outside this society of the spectacle that I so much reject. But let it not sound catastrophic, what I want to talk about here is what saves us from all that, from what we call art (the real thing), from what is an end in itself, an endless purpose. The work of Antonio González is one of those, a refuge.

Whenever I try to think, to rationalize my experience with the things that interest me, I find it very difficult to identify what it is that makes something capture my interest and pass through me in some way, bringing new nuances to the look of the world that, in my limitation, I manage to have. It is not a matter of thematic affinity, not only of personal interests, but rather of honesty. In a context in which artifice has come to replace any essence, the authentic creative exercise, the one that comes from obeying one’s nature, fascinates those who keep their eyes open without being dazzled by rhetoric. It is in this space where I place Antonio’s work.

Years ago Antonio chose the path of the savage, of the one who sings and dances and spins without being aware of who is watching him, the path of the one who does not let himself be tamed. With a palette of five and simple colors and forms, he has constructed a universe in which the painting thinks to itself without rest. Based on repetitions, insistence, resistance in a reality that demands a productivity to which he does not obey, his search becomes an exercise in radicalism. There is no virtuosity in his work; he has managed to divest himself of the distractions of technical sophistication. His geometries are imperfect, but at the same time they flee from the expression of the self proper to the tradition (phallocentric, on the other hand) of Abstract Expressionism. There is no will to leave his mark, no agitated gesture, only naturalness. The unprejudiced approach to his work becomes a frank conversation, close to those of childhood.

The concern for rhythm, color, form, space, structure, scale and the act of painting guide Antonio’s work. His intellectual and aesthetic references are visible through his works and could be placed in a preeminent place within contemporary abstract painting, but his work resists historical interpretation. He remains faithful to his premise, to his need to paint, oblivious to the announced death and resurrection of abstract painting.

Before his paintings, one might wonder if it is only aesthetic delight that one feels. Everyone recognizes the formal harmony of his works, their beauty. It is even possible to appreciate his decorative qualities. But it is the smart person who identifies in Antonio González’s work the value, that which differentiates the merely attractive in its form from that which transcends. His painting is mystical. His work is an excuse to get rid of the weight of the self, of the strangeness of the being, immersed in an exercise of repetition that never ends. Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen, the painting of the quiet savage.

Maite Muñoz.