PAINTING FERNANDO'S
ORGANIC SENSUALY
UREÑA RIB
Fernando Ureña Rib presents his "Oceanic"
exhibition at the lounges of the Casa del Cordón, which shelters
the Cultural Center of the National Popular Bank. In this magnificent,
secular and renovated frame Fernando Ureña Rib exhibit 22
paintings. The environment fits to the tidiness of his
brilliant art execution, to
the conscientiousness, identifying the
marine and oceanic sequences. Fernando
Ureña is one of our best draftsmen and equally a refined colourist
and expert in luminous modulations of colors, and in the the quality of
his brushstroke.
He is at the same time a
contemporary and a conservative artist who sticks to the sumptuous
and rich texture of the oil paint. Twenty years does not seem that
long, and it was like yesterday, when not very far from the
House of the Cordón, in the Colonial Gallery, this very young painter
at the time, came otu as a graduated from the National Fine Arts
School in Santo Domingo, and exhibited for
the first time individually in 1973.
One of Fernando Ureña's
characteristics is that he neither repeats himself and does not
even break with his own past. He evolves and links a period with
previous, ready to "reconnect" a topic with the next, integrating
new elements to his old motives and themes.
We coul see a kind of
pictorial autobiography in these metamorphoses. "Chrysalises" was
fastened as a title of one of his recent series. In fact, every
sample becomes a chrysalis, Nymph whose cocoon prepares the next metamorphosis. This
is what happens with "Oceanic", probably
indicative of another sensual, fruit-bearing and organic
inspiration that has his own and authentic profile.
For years Fernando Ureña has
been attracted by the Ocean. The sea is for him like symbol and
source of life, as inexhaustible quarry of forms, spaces and
tonalities. In fabrics and drawings the fish has been an appellant
entity, inhabited and duplicated and multiplied in playful optical
games and in a basic or secondary effect. In Oceanic, the artist,
is immersed in
the aquatic funds, and has exceeded the fish-shaped world from his
previous exhibitions. The
onirism, which is the dominant
element of his paintings for more than one period, he has designed
and painted
unknown shells, soft molluscs, rare vegetable forms and
conspicuous snails. Fernando
Ureña, in the dream and the dream of the "morfo-chromatic"
creation has prepared " different kind of mutants and chrysalises
of sea.
Personally, we look at them - almost tactile
and sonorously, like one of his qualities is of the
plural sensibility that suggests a fruit-bearing object. Fruits of the tropic in his lyricism pulpous and glossy. Fruits
prohibited maybe, in the measure that they suggest to the adult
eyes, allusions and signs of erotism. The most beautiful
paintings, of moderate formats, are metaphors of the temptation,
with spheres, oblong modules, curl and
ellipsoids forms, of volumetric and
provocative in its impeccable illusionism.
He is not in this
stage when the eroticism has intervened as unavoidable ingredient.
We would say that it has become more marked and suggestive, not in
the nudes of Fernando, owner - goblin of the anatomical
virtuosity, but in his surreal compositions , vegetable forms and plants, animal
anatomy, turn always into organic forms . To bring them near to objects and
intimacies would be takes him much of his seduction and
to vulgarize his lyrics and poetics. The sensuality
reigns, imposes, impregnates. Not more.
Now ,
we have mentioned the aquatic funds. Fund in this meaning means
atmosphere, way, environment. It is exactly what we perceive,
which we feel, before Fernando Ureña's painting. Here the motive
does not exist in the first plane, or planes staggered on a bottom
species of curtain and chromatic support. Concerning the
modules there is felt a consistent, surrounding element, full of
substance, of life, of mystery. Even more, in certain works this
"oceanic" bottom , with his deafened clarities, with his marry
that perforate the semi transparency of the sea it appears as the
preponderant part, which more seduces and schemes.
We agree with Fernando Ureña who can
correspond so well: " After years navigating these waters, plunged
in a terribly dark and underground river, I start dealing to where
I go and what powerful forces drag me, or they sink me, whatever
lights guide or dazzle me. "
