The Wall has been fundamental for the origins of art. The trace of a graffito or painted gesture over a flat surface for ornamental or didactic porpuoses, is part of the history of art, and the evolution of this gesture and the support on which it has been acted has given visibility, along time, to artistic creation.
Núria Guinovart, till now only short career artist, but with an important artistic tradition background (that now we can see in an exhibition in the gallery Na & AG) has found in cement the equivalent to Antuví wall and did not hesitate for a moment to devote herself to capture the artistic footprint in an original surface. The industrial cement, carefully applied Portland cement and tar, are the material elements most prominent in her work. After preparing a crust, while still tender, the artist interacts with it, leaving apart moods, tensions or strictly aesthetic values. Scratching the epidermis (venerating it), reaching for the most noble areas of the support, that is an artistic action with high doses of spontaneity and naturalness. The time it takes to dry the cement does not allow much thought and certainly doesn’t leave any room for metaphysical or ontological affirmation: only the artist’s sensibility and expressive will can be made explicit.
Tradition and modernity are terms linked and both have a place in the work of Guinovart. Cultural heritage, ethnic ritual, gesture and artistic experience are reflected in the works that we can see and explore, all this legacy is a task that the author wants to share with the viewer.
The code used by the artist is decipherable if we can combine the ability to surprise the child with the thoughtful arrangement of maturity. Only complicity between the observer and what the author asks from ourselves will allow us to enjoy an open work that interrogates the cultural baggage with which, along the time, it has being equipped with.