An Existential Enchantment

According to Martin Heidegger, the great German existentialist philosopher of the twentieth century, an important quality of the work of art is that of illustrating, of revealing the Earth and its features: for example, the massiveness of stone or the hardness of wood.

The work of art sets the earth to advantage, while tools and practical utensils lead to the forgetting of the earth; they literally wound the earth. The implements of work, asserts Heidegger, lead in their “usefulness” to the forgetting of the Earth.

By contrast, the work of art reveals the earth, matter, the very poetry of the earth: the work of art is being realized in struggle with the earth itself.

I believe that these ideas are embodied in the painting of Luis Fernando Suarez, who by virtue of his painting technique – the application of color both dense and elegant – illustrates in a manner which is quite direct the intuitions of Martin Heidegger.

In the paintings of Luis Fernando Suarez, a form of expression is embodied which is both “materialized” and textural. Yet, beyond texture, there is human context in this painterly expression.

 

If we are to consider the works of the Colombian Caribbean painters Francisco Obregon or Enrique Grau, we may detect in their works the mystery, the enchantment and the menace of the Colombian Caribbean coast. We may note the marine atmosphere, a certain “black” animism, even a kind of “sorcery”, sometimes sad, sometimes joyful.

In the work of Ecuadorian painter Osvaldo Guayasamin, one observes the Andean heights, indeed the environment in which Andean man lives. This painter also tells us about the historical suffering of indigenous people who were conquered by Europeans. Indeed, there is a paradox of cosmic joy in the suffering of Andean man, as apprehended by Guayasamin.

Following in the footsteps of Obregon, Grau and Guayasamin, indeed within a tradition they established, Luis Fernando Suarez not only evokes the earth, but also the native world, the native environment. The images he creates encompass the geometric qualities of Andean buildings, of the village streets.

The reds, the ocres, evoke a chromatic ambiance in which Andean man lives. In addition, there is a musical aspect in his works: the rhythmic quality of colours, of geometric forms, link these aspects to certain forms of flute music…

Looking at Suarez’s paintings, we become aware of a deceleration of time… this work contains an immanence, an existential quality; these lead to a forgetting of the ego of the viewer and thereby evoke living in harmony with the sky, the earth and above all, with one’s fellow men: a remembering of native fraternity and tolerance.

Then, in our present world, where we are witnessing the triumph of “conceptual” art, of “administrative”, dematerialized forms of expression, Luis Fernando Suarez presents a very specific and contemporary form of art of strong cultural connections, art that is materialized, textural, existential. His geometric areas of paint, his units of constructing the chromatic field, create in the best Latin-American tradition, a synthesis of beauty – let’s not be shy about using this word – of abstract art and of the organic memory of indigenous and peasant roots.