Washington Barcala

WASHINGTON BARCALA (Montevideo 1920- 1993).
Untitled.
Mixed media and collage on paper adhered to board.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 43 x 53 cm.

Multidisciplinary artist he was formed sharing tasks in the factory of cardboard boxes of his parents, this way he became familiar with the raw material that years later he would use in his work. In his early years of education he studied at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Montevideo, coinciding with the artist Joaquín Torres García. In 1950 he attended classes at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid). He returns to Montevideo and then returns to Madrid for good in 1975, when his work begins to acquire international projection. His production can be grouped into three styles: figurative painting (1946-1950), abstract and informalist painting (1961-1964) to reach what is his most personal style "stage of the boxes" since 1967. It is worth noting the artist's definition of his conception of art, which is collected on his website. "When I make a painting I try to create spaces of visual relations where the forms express by their identity or general appearance, relations and tensions, the phenomena that surround, the diverse realities of the physical or spiritual world. These vital testimonies, these intimate feelings poured into analytical or instinctive images, are the generators of what I call, in order to escape imprecise cataloguing, ordinations. To the surface of the work I concur with the motivations that will shape the image, with the inexhaustible possible solutions of composition, with infinity of forms, with the different fabrics, children and papers, with woods in their natural or painted state and the colors with their mysteries of relationships. In an intense search to establish an order, everything is digested to achieve the maximum possible balance. Assuming that he has succeeded, the degree of experience of the work will be greater or lesser, depending on the success achieved". Today his works are found in different collections of great artistic relevance, both private and public, an example of this are the two works that the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, has in its collection.