Rafel Joan

RAFEL JOAN (Palma de Mallorca, 1957).
"Eleazar," 1992.
Watercolor on paper.
Exhibitions: Rafel Joan. Paintings 1983–2013, Es Baluard Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Palma, 2014.
Measurements: 162 × 130 cm.

A work belonging to a particularly significant period in Rafel Joan’s career, *Eleazar* is part of the urban series he developed before gradually shifting his focus to landscape painting. The scene depicts a bustling public interior, rendered through a deep perspective that guides the viewer’s gaze among counters, pillars, and groups of figures. The palette of yellows, muted greens, and grays creates an enveloping atmosphere, while the figures—often reduced to barely defined silhouettes—convey the movement and transience characteristic of urban life. The artificial light from the lamps and the fluid application of watercolor allow Joan to partially dissolve the forms without losing the spatial structure of the composition.

During these years, the artist frequently depicted streets, cafés, bars, and other urban spaces, focusing more on their atmosphere and the experience of the place than on a meticulous description. *Eleazar*, dated 1992, fits precisely into this context and is a particularly ambitious work due to its size.

Rafel Joan held his first solo exhibition at Galeria 4 Gats in Palma in 1983 and has since regularly shown his work at venues such as Metrònom, Dau al Set, Galeria Trama, and Sala Parés. His early work has been associated with Neo-Expressionism and the return to figuration of the 1980s, although he soon developed a more personal language, attuned to light, perception, and the direct experience of places. In 2014, Es Baluard dedicated its first major retrospective to him, *Rafel Joan: Paintings 1983–2013*, curated by Enrique Juncosa.