Carme Bassa:
the color of a universal feminity
The painting
exhibition of Carme Bassa proposes a poetic glance to the world that
surrounds us, either revealing the soul of the daily objects coming
from the dialogue which they conform with their shared presence and
the emotional load given to them by our mutual coexistence; or in
the cosmic connection of a universal dialogue that approximates concepts
and representations, approaching different cultures while avoiding
both geographic and cultural borders.
One can propose
a thread to catch all the complexity of this artist’s work,
who observes the world that troubles her from a feminine but not feminist
perspective. Daring to use this word despised by a culture of clear
macho connotations, and putting on the canvas another voice to which
infinite echoes are added.
WORKING (RE)SEARCH.
Her works never start from a premeditated concept, rather is the constant
dialogue with the painting, during the working process that develops
its contents. The contact with the materials, while painting, makes
her sensitivity flowing in a natural way, addressing all her inner
drive to the hand in charge to represent her feelings. On the other
hand, this reveals her as a tireless artist when it comes to explore
the unknown to catch the unexpected.
The technical
procedure used by Carme Bassa in the elaboration of her art is the
traditional encaustics (beeswax mixed with resin and pigments). This
fact alone begins to shape her discourse that will also be developed
in the contents of her work: the awareness of the past.
UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS.
The incisions that draw signs and symbols of a both private and universal
world, bring to the memory the human necessity of the stroke, of the
track. Her paintings could become walls for the souls housel, or an
atemporal mirror for the permanence of the gesture. Cave paintings,
symbols of ancient cultures or drawings of Paul Klee, all in all,
the magic of being conscious that there is a code of coincident communication
exists when one learns to listen and to participate in synergy.
GODDESSES.
The feminine representations that Carme Bassa makes are done from
the point of view of a woman interested for the woman world. Accomplice
as well of sharing this world, she sublimates it whereas she has chosen
the symbol of a woman who represents the divinity, recovering, in
addition, ancestral roots.
Her goddesses
evoke forms of the pre-Hellenic classic world, concretely those of
the proto-Attic style like, for example, the Lady of the Beasts. Drawn
in geometries that determine the synthesis capacity, with vibrated
lines that suggest the force, and within an aesthetics that outlines
an identity formed by a strongly Mediterranean legacy, looking forward
to recovering the sacred aspect of painting as well.
LIGHT OF THE
MEMORY. The sensitivity of this artist leads her to a poetic investigation
of the world that surrounds her. Carme Bassa pours into her works
something that comes from the most deepest part of her and that’s
why the cultural substrate of everything she’s lived is shown,
evoking Pompeii’s frescoes in the windows of its painted architectures,
cloisters and drawings of ancestral cultures floating in the landscapes
of the memory, enlightened by the closed light of a memory. An old
memory, because of the aging character that she gives to the treatment
of her pieces, but also very alive, because of the contemporary character
of her views on the woman place in the current society.
Pilar Giró
(Bonart magazine, November 2005)
The world that
Carme Bassa creates is an ancient one and a new one at the same time.
Like the beauty and character that age brings, her work has the depth
and patina of wrinkles on a human face, of having lived, grown and
evolved into something better and more complex. Her subtly worked
paintings are offerings containing gestures and silhouettes of implied
images and fleeting objects. These incised figures are contained within
a simulated impasto of quasi bas-reliefs which refer to a prehistoric
iconography very reminiscent at times of petroglyphs of cultures long
gone. These graphic elements in her work are like the traces of memory
etched in stone in which other places and other epochs have resided.
Carme Bassa
moves in and beyond the soil of her origins, unveiling shapes and
textures is a subliminal reflection of her native geography in her
use of austere Catalan forms and colors. Her heavily textured surfaces
are influenced by the range of hues found in this environment; she
uses primarily earth colors and a luminescent Mediterranean blue.
There is a voluptuous aesthetic of pigments and materials in her encaustic
paintings on canvas, the overlay paint is mixed with marble powder
and the build up of resin, beeswax and paraffin create a depth of
surface. Like tracks in the desert sand, Carme Bassa’s paintings
contain enigmatic symbols of a secret language carved into the waxen
surface.
Katherine
Slusher
