Nervo Combustão Fluxo

José Bechara

From Sep 15 to Oct 28 2022

What most strongly unites the works in this exhibition is the fact that they are in perpetual motion even in a state of apparent rest. There is an action, a becoming, that happens uninterruptedly even though these changes are not perceptible with the naked eye. It is known to those who follow the trajectory of José Bechara that the phenomenon of oxidation of ferrous and/or cupric emulsion on truck canvas is something that persists since the beginning of its trajectory. a certain magic happens in the distribution, quantity and gesture that Bechara employs using the emulsions on the canvas. But I want to go beyond this notorious fact and point out that his works in the last decade, a small part of which are shown here, show other gestures (or movements, if you want to call it that).

 Bechara didn't leave the grid either – a constant sign in his trajectory – but has become more complex in recent years. Added more elements to this structure, conveying a feeling of agility and increasing the power allegorical of a transitory state in his paintings. I say this because, in addition the fact that the artist does not abdicate the oxidation process in the construction of forms geometric shapes on the canvas, there is another temporality regime being explored. If, in the oxidized parts found in the painting, the passage of time, demarcated by the action of the emulsion on the canvas, it is slow, meticulous and “imperceptible” to the experience of the eye, in the forms that characterize the grid, our gaze roams the painting surface in an accelerated and discontinuous way. There is no center, everything is to move elusively and unsteadily. The color points, flashy, warm and spread across the most distinct points of the canvas, intensify this operation. In the diptych Margarida Cabeça Stripe (2018), what prevails is the oxidation on the canvas superior, metaphorically forming not only a matter in combustion, but the constitution of a landscape, notably, of a fog. The choice is insightful, up to a certain occasional point, that Bechara does of how, where and with what intensity the chemical process of oxidation will occur on the canvas and, in a second moment, the forms alluding to the world that are created.

 Bechara also operates through the fracture and we can observe this feature from two points of view. First, I would say, a fracture that occurs on the chosen material. The artist makes use, and the cases are not rare, of patches, that is, pieces of canvas superimposed on top of the larger canvas. This operation of cutting and sewing makes apparent a universe of dirt, kludge, fury, smell and metropolis atmosphere. This fracture, so to speak, exudes viscerality. The other possibility of fracture is the division of his paintings into modules; be diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs. There is the dimension of a scale that is not satisfied in being diminutive, circumspect or governed by a formal timidity, on the contrary, she want the space. And this appearance to the world takes place in a conflicted, determined, imposing and essentially vigorous. 

 Because his works embrace symptoms such as rupture and discontinuity, evident in the way the artist constructs his geometric mesh and in the dispersion space of filled and hollow circles, as well as bars and other figures that inhabit the space of their paintings, they end up leaving aside the craft of subtleties. The brutality of the truck tarpaulin seems to me to reinforce this data. Bechara reveals words in several works (such as the name of the factory that produced the tarp or the company that transported such product stored under the tarp) and scratches and creases that reinforce, respectively, the place and use that were given to these tarps. The paintings continue to propagate the stories and memories of the canvas seen that they – paintings – are a direct result of this material. The wear character of tarps and, of course, the passage of time are marked in what I call “accidents”, that is, its folds, cuts and dirt, which in turn are incorporated by the paintings.

 The polyptych made with copper oxidation, in addition to displaying operations geometric shapes on a mesh, takes Bechara's painting to another symbolic terrain. Its color, a tonality between greenish and whitish, and certainly the oxidation process that generated organic shapes and textures, close to a biological material being investigated by a microscope, end up associating the surface of painting the skin. It is not known whether human or animal. In In any case, painting comes to represent a biological pattern that particularizes the canvas surface.

 The two sculptures that use glass as a design in space corroborate the idea of ​​fracture. With a site specific character, the glass plates are approximated, always respecting an interval, and eventually suspended, forming a geometric mesh. The two works extend along the respective walls on which they are installed, creating a temporary relationship with space: affecting and being affected by it. The way the glass presents itself, now rigid, now staggering, and at other times fragile, especially when it is high, reinforces a quality of restlessness and speed of the work. in this land oscillating, there is still the game of translucency and opacity that the milky glass offers in contrast to the glass that does not receive any kind of treatment; not the glass it is more the element that can be seen through, but an instance of obstacle. In turn, the neon tubes, in one of the sculptures, are eager to form three-dimensional geometric figures. It is the light that delimits the drawing, cutting the space, producing area and giving the work a property of air. The light it also brings a sense of vibrancy and vigor to the sculpture, enhancing the color in the space. We cannot forget that neon has a kind of hypnotic aura, referring to the flashy commercial advertisements that abound in urban centers.

 The works in circular format with their superimposed canvas surface by stripes indicate once again the dispersive and fractured character of the work of artist. Upstairs, the paintings are arranged randomly on the wall. praise an eye that never stops moving, determining the associations formal, chromatic and phenomenological aspects of this set. Color is the protagonist in this polyptych, at the same time that it partially seals – therefore, without ceasing to display – the “visual occurrences”, as Bechara calls them. The “occurrences” are the records – stains, cuts, creases, remnants of words, their history and memory – contained in the canvas that not only compose an abstract landscape, which is the keynote of the work of Bechara, but singularly are records of the artist's gestures. In many cases, they need not be painted by means of a brush, but elected (by the eyes of the artist). This is what Bechara teaches us. Larger circular works proportions make the “visual occurrences” even more evident and a certain degree informalist of his painting. Oxidation becomes a stain, which becomes a cloud, which makes landscape. They are little pieces of the world. 

Bechara continues, like a dynamo, to produce new and incessant landscapes powered by combustion and high intensity.