WE WALK AMIDST BRAMBLES AND STONY PATHS, WE WALK SEEKING INDISTINCT HORIZONS. WE WALK TOWARDS AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE, DRIVEN BY THE FRESH WIND OF ADVENTURE, TOWARDS A TOMORROW WE WISH TO BE BETTER, WE WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OTHERS WHO WALKED BEFORE US AND, WE GAZE AT THE CONSTELLATED UNIVERSE WHERE EVERYTHING IS SUSPENDED IN THE AIR, AS IF BY MAGIC. WE WALK.———————————J.M. Rosselló
1. First of all, what inspired you to create the Christmas artwork that will serve as the cover for Diari Més’s Christmas special?
In the times we live in, when there is a profound sense of helplessness, the connection with the cosmic becomes stronger and serves as the vanishing point.
2. What painting technique did you employ for this work?
It is acrylic paint on handmade paper from the Ca l’Oliver mill, which no longer exists.
3. How would you define this Christmas artwork for those unfamiliar with painting?
As a hymn to creation, from the couple, who, blurred and indistinct, gaze at the universe where everything, at least from this perspective, seems marvelous, extraordinary, perfect, and distant, unattainable. This cosmic gaze is characteristic of the world’s most ancient cultures.
4. The color blue predominates, which is not precisely a typical Christmas color like green or red. Why this choice?
Blue has triumphed over the dark night; it creates luminosity throughout the scene and a sense of spaciousness. Besides giving dimension to the work, it allows breathing room among the forms surrounding the couple. This blue is made with “blauet,” a color used by painters from the archaic cultures of the Mediterranean. Perhaps it is not one of the popular Christmas colors, perhaps it is, but, look, Joseph and Mary must certainly have felt similarly to the couple in the drawing when, after knocking on all doors, they had to take refuge in the stable where Jesus was born.
5. Along with the Christmas artwork, you include a text. Is it somewhat an explanation of what you wanted to convey in this Christmas artwork? Is it by a known author?
The text is mine, and it is what I sent via the internet to friends this Christmas, accompanied by a “despite everything.” The drawing I created for the Christmas artwork and this text were born at the same time, and I cannot recall if one came before the other.
6. What do the Christmas holidays mean to Josep Maria Rosselló, both as an artist and as a citizen?
Christmas celebrates the birth of a child, and this, now and always, has been a cause for joy. If this child is the Son of God, who comes to save the world, that’s quite something! As an artist, I recall the works that many artists who preceded me created on this theme, full of magical, cosmic connotations. As a citizen, I like it when cities light up for Christmas (even though electricity prices have risen by 60% in recent years); I do not like the consumerism these holidays generate, no, I do not like it at all. I preferred the family intimacy of my childhood, and the Midnight Mass. Oh! the Midnight Mass.
7. Besides this commission, which will become part of your collection, what are you currently working on?
Yes, this drawing will become part of my collection, which is currently safeguarded by the Museum of Modern Art of the Diputació, and other city institutions such as the Municipal Library-Hemeroteca, the City History Museum (Casa Castellarnau), the Rovira i Virgili University, El Port, and the Royal Archaeological Society of Tarragona. I have finished the text, with revisions by Olga Xirinacs and Maria Elena Virgili, and the new prologue by Luis Antonio de Villena for the second edition of the book “Lorca, the Unknown Visit,” which is currently dormant in a drawer, awaiting a final revision. It will probably be published next year. I have another project we are working on with the MAMT, provisionally titled “Magda Folch, the Magic of Realism,” about the painter Magda Folch, who was one of my teachers. It includes two unpublished texts by art critics José Corredor-Matheos and Daniel Giralt Miracle, and the biographical section will be handled by historian Carme Puyol.
8. Will we soon see any exhibition or display of your latest works?
The last exhibition of my works seen in Tarragona was “Experimental da Vinci,” at the Sarcophagus Room of the Praetorium, which actually closed at the end of January this year; in four days it will have been a year, and according to statistics, it had 8,000 visitors. Currently, my original work can be seen in a permanent exhibition at RibesDecoració, on Mendez Nuñez street, and my trajectory, as well as the latest news, can be followed on my website. < Espai Rosselló.com>. Next year, in April, there will be an exhibition of small-format experimental works at the URV, and currently there is an exhibition of small-format works on paper from the “Suite Man-Ray” collection in Greenwich, USA, at the “Voce Di” gallery, by a group of Italian architects, an exhibition that will probably go to New York later, but in those lands things are not going as well as they did years ago.
9. Do you have other projects in mind?
Yes, some are secret, and of course I don’t talk about those, and others are merely projects. For example, “3 or 4 Anaglyphs” is a project that aims to make the interior of some of my sculptures, which have the particularity of being able to be created in macro formats, visitable. Now Rubén Fernandez is creating a 3D digital work that will allow viewing the exterior and interior of the sculpture simultaneously, which is in fact another sculpture. I am working on a text for a project that may possibly be extended to other artists, provided their work falls within the parameters required by the project, as was the case seven or eight years ago with the “Cadavre Exquis.” This time I don’t quite know how it will go yet; I am working on it. I have titled it—the title always acts as an umbrella, it’s like a push that helps you move forward: “From Automatic Drawing to the Found Object,” and it opens, as a prologue, with a text by the poet Federico García Lorca.
Laura Gómez
