The Golden City by Javier Ponce

Javier Ponce 's pictorial work is exhibited in the entrance hall of the Barradas auditorium , on the Rambla Just Oliveras in l'Hospitalet del Llobregat, the curator is Paco Anglada , also a painter and abstract artist who lives in Cunit and moves around Sitges where he actively participates in the Pinzell gathering , heir to that Bohemian Gathering of Roy and Retiro, founded by Albert d'Albert (Albert Pujolar Soler) and maintained for years by the unforgettable Blanca De Nicolas .

Behind the names we find the stories and works that tell us about the evolution of culture, the interweaving of the arts and our current reality. Rafael Barradas (Montevideo, 1890 – 1929), a Uruguayan artist of Spanish descent, created the artistic trend known as vibrationism; He traveled through Europe where, residing in Barcelona, he exhibited at the Dalmau Gallery on Portaferrissa Street together with the other Uruguayan with Catalan roots, Joaquim Torres-Garcia , creator of the manifesto Art – Evolution in the magazine Un enemic del poble, directed by Joan Salvat-Papasseit , in 1917. Ten years later, Barradas founded “El Ateneillo”, an informal circle of friends who met in Hospitalet, a group made up of intellectuals of the time such as Garcia Lorca , Gasch , Josep Maria de Sucre , among others and with Carmen Barradas , composer and pianist, author of the trilogy Foneria, Serradora i Fabricació and Taller mecánic, avant-garde musical works that walked the sound path of futurism and modernity straddling two continents.

The paintings of Javier Ponce (Melilla, 1953), are abstract, as abstract as the music of Carme Barradas . This artist has forged a nomadic career between Barcelona and Malaga, with incursions into the world of ceramics and theatrical costume design. Among his numerous exhibitions we find the one he held in 1993 at Lemia Art , a Sitges art gallery that from its headquarters on Sant Francesc Street bet on the expressionist art of Fradogo, Francesc Domènech González (Barcelona, 1946 – Sitges, 1996). Another milestone that J. Ponce set in Sitges was in 2016 with the collective exhibition at the remembered Guerrero art gallery , also open on Sant Francesc Street. On those occasions, it was already possible to grasp the abstract affiliation of a Malagan painter who has similarities with Enrique Brinkmann (Malaga 1938), one of the artists who was selected in the traveling international exhibition in tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. I have a dream, produced by the Sitges City Council and curated by Gabi Serrano in 2009. Brinkmann participated with the work Saludos a Wols, making direct reference to the German artist Alfred Otto Wolfang Schultze (Berlin, 1913 – Paris, 1951) who was, in addition to being an engraver, a photographer who questioned figuration. The phrase has been attributed to him: to see nothing is necessary, only knowing how to see. And also this other one: The image can be in relation to nature in the same way as Bach's fugue with Jesus Christ, such a case is not a copy but an analogous creation.

In his works on methacrylate, Javier Ponce paints in the opposite way to the traditional one. As if in a mirror, he reflects colors and shapes that become scores of an abstract symphony . The title of the exhibition 'The Golden City' offers us an imaginary atlas with thirty-two maps to decipher; full of signs, paths, symbols and enigmas that we can only grasp by closing our eyes and hearing with the ears of our soul the score that unravels the notes, the bars, the movements hidden in this bright and colorful abstraction. Under Javier Ponce's methacrylates we find the intuitive magician who discovers worlds for us under the skin of the gold of the sunsets.