At the beginning of April, I wrote to my good friend Jose Maria Alimbau to invite him to my exhibition of the 16th of April in Barcelona. I also sent him the catalogue of my last exhibition in Malaga (October 2001). That exhibition with 64 paintings and 45 drawings, divided into two parts, the second of which, “Theology of Expression” showed part of the work I have been painting during the last 15 years, where I try to express, from my painting, pain, loneliness, hate, abandonment, torture, death… and also, why not, hope.

    The Cross exists, but also does Resurrection.

Some time ago, someone told me that at the beginning my paintings were heartrending but full of colour; creaking colours that wanted to exit the painting and shout… but that, nevertheless, currently colours and shapes have softened, they are less aggressive and more muted. I asked myself about the reason of this change. I did not know what to answer back then. At first I shouted against injustice, against the human tragedies we see as spectators without being able to do something or almost nothing. It was the helplessness before famine, disgust before death, before the sterile dialogue between trenches and weapons, before the dark eyes, black and dead eyes that never knew what a tender and consoling look is, before that last cry of fear that shakes our soul, before that flee to nowhere with music of laments.

At the beginning my painting was a shout. Now, it is prayer. That is my sole explanation, if there is to be one, about that change in the colours and expression.

And by reaching this point, I also reach the conclusion that the painter can only recreate from something that already exists. The only one that can create is God. He created everything. We painters, we can observe men and nature, but always starting from something that, even if it were in dreams and deformed, we have already seen. I would even dare to say something more: the painter is a mere instrument executing the work, putting into practice that gift that God has granted him, to be able to express himself in shapes and colours without even knowing how, or why, so many nuances are the supporting structure of the work. That is an irrefutable proof that someone has directed your hand; when the painter observes the already finished Work as a spectator, he cannot explain why that brushstroke, why that blue there or that red colour in the back. So, in short, what the painter must do is painting and showing his work to share it with those ones with whom a spontaneous dialogue happens, a dialogue in which the spectator becomes protagonist together with the work.

        
Jorge Rando, Malaga, April 2003