Meetings between lines: the art of “cultivating the soul”

El Nacional [Venezuelan Journal] digital edition 01-28-2015 

Literary Paper

Meetings between lines: the art of “cultivating the soul”

by Lucía Jimenez

Ricardo Gil’s exhibition in Centro de Arte Los Galpones was the occasion for Perán Erminy to offer last Sunday an open discussion dedicated to Art and nature.

Lucía Jimenez – January 28th, 2015 – 12:01 am

– “Why to paint a flower?” – The master asked us – “Is it of any use to paint a landscape? I believe it is indeed; I believe when we make art out of nature, we strive to return to the lost paradise.”

The “master” Perán Erminy, as he is known by those within the public, who greeted him warmly, arrived that Sunday morning a little late. We awaited him calmly, while strolling amid the flower arrangements of the exhibition, and those acquainted talked to the artist. The little room was getting crowded, mostly by women, as if awaiting the professor for the hydroponics class.

The exhibition that occupies the spaces of room G15 since December seeks to highlight the beauty of organic. Ricardo Gil’s work intends to fill this art room with the beauty of flowers by means of building techniques of raised gardens. This “Art Crops”, as they are called by their author, surround us in a way that we can intimately appreciate them, that we can interact with them so they feed our souls, “because flowers satisfy the spirit” – as Gil and Erminy insist.

A little improvised, another little among life stories, Perán Erminy – critic and art visual specialist – delivers to the public his version of this natural art that surpasses the dehumanization of the cities that decay in chaos, that suffocate in superficiality, buried under “pure cement”. Caracas may get lost in this infinity of buildings if the Avila was not there. Our North. The city disguises in the green and blue of the mountain and it is art. It inspires, it becomes the focus of artists and of housewives that decorate around the windows. Erminy talks about them, as well.

-“No one has invented the gender of painting landscapes in Venezuela. Since years 345 flowers were painted in China” – the master continues. “It’s an endless subject, as the purchase of knowledge, since the beginning of civilization, the arising of sciences, the origins of arts… It is the reflection of order and disorder, the natural balance in contact with human desires: “countless possibilities”. It is the romantic and corny, but necessary art.

From Manuel Cabré’s landscapes to the Ana María Ferris’ erotic flowers, the art of “nature painting” has evolved in Venezuela as in any other part of the world, according to the needs that each artist intends to satisfy in their never-ending pursuit of knowledge – “the unacceptable sin”, as Perán calls it – that will give them back their bit of lost paradise. “It’s an undefined area of behavior”: taking from nature to create something esthetic.

In this exhibition, landscapist Ricardo Gil intends to raise awareness in the spectator, interest him in nature and lastly, to make him conscious about the environment. Some times we have heard him repeat: “farming the soul”. His work reminds Peran Erminy of those imaginary gardens of Babylon, or the modern gardens of Madrid that rescue public and private spaces within artificial worlds. Finally, each work shall mean something different to each beholder. Like each flower, each twig and each leaf meant something to Ricardo when he arranged them.

Soil, Water and Fire. The artist – because he must be called artist – constantly resorts to elements of nature and synthesizes them through modern techniques, creating theses organic pieces. They are portable raised gardens. He abandons paint and converts flowers into paintings, in organic art. Next Sunday the exhibition ends and Gil will be there – as of 11:00 am – to tell us this time about his techniques and his raised gardens.

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