Strokes that capture an explosion of color; Gabriel Ramírez presents an exhibition

Gabriel Ramírez's painting (Mérida, 1938) is born from an instinctive exploration of light and often opts for the explosion of color. His work, which has not been seen in Mexico City for half a century, is born in the realm of the abstract, lacking a sketch, although it is inspired by nature and characters from his imagination, such as when he appropriates the gaze of a cat, represents a couple or projects a different way of appreciating a garden.

This is evidenced by the exhibition Something in the Sun , a show made up of 38 works (including fabrics and papers), which has been on display for a few days in Gallery 526 of the Mexican Culture Seminar, to celebrate Ramírez's 60-year artistic career, where it is possible to confront that light that comes from the Yucatán peninsula.

"I hope this is not the last one (exhibition), it is the most recent thing I have done. I liked it because, finally, after many years I found a way out of what had me stuck or lost and, without realizing it, I got this result," he explained by telephone to Excélsior .

However, he admits that he could not explain or provide any clues to approach his pictorial work. “I cannot say what my painting consists of, because there is no theme, it is only a sample of what I am capable of doing in painting, which is basically coloristic, where there is no mystery. What one sees in the painting is what it is and there is nothing more, so there are no interpretations of anything and it is pure painting.”

Does your work have any connection with light? We ask the artist, who is a founding member of the Salón Independiente and a member of the Generación de la Ruptura. “Yes, that’s kind of the idea… since I live here in Mérida and I do my work here, they immediately associate it with color and light, it’s true, because Mérida has a very clean atmosphere and the sharpness of the objects and things is very strong, I have always been very colorful.

The basis of my work is direct colour, without nuances and (where the work) is always associated with light and colour, although the title of the exhibition is just one more. I don't like to title my exhibitions, but there is always insistence and finally these themes come out: colour and light, but it doesn't have any greater meaning," he says.

Finally, he says that with abstract painting the public can reach more abstract interpretations than the artist himself, “because they see things that the painter had not seen and that happens to me a lot, but I am no longer responsible for what the spectator sees or glimpses, because the work is not completely finished, that is to say, this aspiration to reach perfection is a stupid thing… because it does not exist,” he says.

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