PROPOSAL AT AGE 20
Belkis Ayón and Isary Paulet
Servando Cabrera Moreno Art Gallery
December, 1988
PIECE FOR FLUTE AND CLARINET
We are simply between two worlds, where fantasy, where THE FABULOUS, have the floor.
If for a moment we put aside the virtuosity of the printmaker, which are everywhere here, and evade a certain illustrative character, not because these things are despicable, but because she wanted to bring them to the center of her expression, then we would have to face a message directly poetic, based on harmony, on a lyricism that plays with reasons and beautician desires, which make a delicate piece for flute and clarinet from the vision of reality. Everything unfolds like the scenery of a story: in Isary, the characters, like crazy pixies, are distributed following the whims of the kaleidoscope, playing, I believe, the role of the only saviors of a world that increasingly needs and wishes the arrival of some representative of the magical world capable of transforming it into something else. Spielberg? Neo-infantilism?
Like Isary, Belkis works with mystery in her work, drawn from such perfect configurations, of colors so peacefully pleasing, that they arouse unease. But suddenly one has the feeling that we are only facing an idealization, too much tenderness, almost in a peaceful reverie, in that unreal film that cannot continue, that cannot be, that one more moment and explodes.
It may be that neither of the two interpretations is exact, it does not matter, they are only the style that fits for these expressive centers, surrounded by the deployment of an arsenal of irreproachable techniques and invoices. Because some could stay there, in the resplendent quality of the finish of their products. That finish is nothing more than the superficial of the art of these charming.
The elements are well managed by the magician to integrate them into the illusion. Then the feeling is presented in the force of a very own saying in each case that in Isary and Belkis, in their proposals, they have the presentation of a meticulous structure, many times thought and calculated, destined to transmit security or very security purified that it becomes practically brittle.
Aldo Menendez
(Text for the exhibition catalog)