EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALJune 6, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
Paper Andalusia
Pablo Picasso said, "I never made a painting as a work of art.
It’s all research." Here’s a study – a study of absorption. A study of
depth. Of juicy velvet.
These walls, and the paint that the Sevillanos mix with luminescent
albero sand – they sink into the paper. The paper’s so thick it’s like
canvas, only rough and spongy. Reduce the themes – like constants in the street, in
the alleys, out the window. Now experiment.
If I spend my life only getting to the bottom of colour and its
relationships, I’ll still never finish and I’ll still find excitement in it.
There’s joy – every single time it glops onto the painting surface. Drag
something beside the first colour and it changes before your eyes. That’s the most
extraordinary thing. They’re all related, only one turns the ochre to green-gold, and
one turns the ochre to apricot-salmon-flesh. Before your eyes.
On the paper, things remain organic, with tapestry edges and ridges
where the colours meet. Invent something beyond Prismacolour. Impossible? That depends on
what’s beside it on the Sevillano colour wheel.
