Opening Night in Torrejón de Ardoz: When the Paintings Meet the Room

Video and notes from my art exhibition opening in Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain, with live guitar, visitors and my painting "Árbol de silencio".

There's a moment I always wait for at an opening. The paintings have been hung, the lights are on, the room is still empty, and everything is quiet. Then the doors open. This was opening night of the IX Art Prize Ciudad de Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain, and the video above is my way of taking you through the room. You'll see people drifting from wall to wall, stopping in front of canvases, leaning in to look at the surface, and talking in small groups. A guitarist played live in the middle of the hall, and the music gave the evening a rhythm of its own. One of the pieces on show is "Árbol de silencio" ("Tree of Silence"), the golden-yellow birch grove you'll spot in the video. It's a painting about stillness: tall white trunks rising from dark ground under an intense yellow light, a landscape that is loud in colour but quiet in feeling. Seeing it on a gallery wall, with people standing in front of it, is very different from seeing it in my studio. Scale, light and distance change what a painting says. Photographs and screens flatten texture and colour. In a room, paint becomes physical: you can see the brushwork, the layers, the places where the colour got thick or thin. And visitors notice things I never planned. Someone sees a memory, someone else a season, someone a sound. That conversation between the work and the person looking at it is the real reason I paint. Thank you to everyone who came, to those who stayed to talk, and to the people who made the evening possible. I'm very grateful. If you're near Torrejón de Ardoz, I'd love for you to see the paintings in person. Sala Municipal de Exposiciones de la Casa de la Cultura from October 17th to November 8th.