She can usually be seen between the wind and sky.
Building her nest in a wave of fury.
Flying steady and true like a bullet.

She lends her wings to the storm
And when the lions roar in the caves
She hovers over the abyss and continues

She doesn’t seek rock
rope, or the pier,
She makes insecurity her strength
And feeds off the risk of dying.

That’s why I see her as a perfect image
Of someone who lives and sings
In the storm.

Sophia Mello Breyner

I met the artist Beatriz de la Rúa over ten years ago. Since then, our paths have crossed thousands of times as we continue our way along the journey through art and life. The light in her eyes and conspiratorial smile are still intact; and when she arrives, one can sense her presence without seeing her because of her characteristic perfume. She is a powerful woman who travels through life using paintbrushes as extensions of her soul.

I remember her black lines that drew trees, graphisms, silhouettes, and even some faces looking at us. Her works were rivers of ink, words, threads of stone, then the line faded away into the trickles of water in black and white, becoming a stain on the paper.

Beatriz de la Rúa paints openly to life just as the Chinese proverb says:

« Do not restrict life.
One has to work like it does »

Like a flower that shows its full splendour, today, the paintings full of vivacious unmistakable colours, are a mark, sign, and footprint that nothing can erase. Graphic forms appear in the pictorial work. The artist prints like a unique die on the canvas. Then the varnishes are added and thus the colours form constellations all over the canvasses. The series Jardín cósmico (Cosmic Garden) starts with a printed stain and from then the successive layers of paint reveal part of that beginning, which ends in brushstrokes that illuminate this heaven on earth.

Veils, layers, marks, footprints, inks, feathers, brushes and water until those birds and flowers that dwell in blue universes are achieved. The Tao says that the great image has no form. The colour of earth is the base for all the compositions, just as Earth is the great mother who nurtures and shelters us.

This beautiful woman with vivacious eyes shows us that only when one stands firmly on earth can one touch heaven. Like the trees that she drew, like those forests that, today, are herself.
Everything is perfect. The common thread through Beatriz’s life is the same one that runs through her work.

This exhibition was conceived when the gallery director saw a work called Bosque no dominado (Untamed Forest); the best way to illustrate that the nature within her is free and has its own rules.

In this exhibition, the works invite us to explore caves that frame settings in their interior.
Today, the tsunami has passed and Beatriz stands firm, deeply rooted, and her branches of a thousand colours touch heaven.

Monday 29 February 2016