Found lights II
A plea in favor of Painting, of Painting with a capital “P.”
Two visions that emphasize what is inherent and intrinsic to Painting itself, to its very nature. Two contributions to its sustenance.
Hence the title, Found lights, which both painters, Miguel Galano and Juan Carlos Lázaro, have chosen for this joint exhibition presented at the Caicoya Gallery in Oviedo.
Here, painting stands alone and in silence, naked, free from external constraints, serving solely its natural and original purpose: to evoke emotions.
Skulls, roses, loaves of bread, candles, books…, with these everyday objects, we aspire for these very things—painted and transfigured here and in this way—to become, as Santiago Amón wrote, an “epiphany; that is, simply and without needing to clarify their origin, something that manifests itself or appears to us, revealing itself in an instant and luminous, striking way.”
Ángel González once said that “Giorgio de Chirico was convinced that this sudden, illuminated strangeness constitutes the origin and foundation of art […] And indeed, who doesn’t remember entering a closed room one day, where light seeped through a crack, and seeing a ray of light, laden with dust, illuminate something that had always seemed worthless to us—and, for example, who knows! a silly little porcelain figurine of a dog or a cat—and feeling that nothing so admirable could exist in this world, and even that it might well be, that dog or that cat, the one true God, as once happened to Baudelaire?”
Clearly, I—we—are also convinced of what Chirico believed: in the inexplicable way that Painting, when not subordinated to other interests foreign to itself but instead true to its natural essence, reveals, uncovers, and speaks to us.
J C L 2025