Guillermo Fesser
Guillermo Fesser
Framing a dog
In the end, we all walk past the same things. History repeats itself. The path of our species is always the same; the only thing that explains the differences in our perceptions is the optics we use in our gaze. Those who have chosen a 16 millimetre wide-angle lens will keep the sensations, but will miss the reasons for them. And whoever, on the other hand, decides to take a walk with a telephoto lens; although he will be able to capture the details with precision, he will be unable to fit them into a puzzle that makes sense of what he is observing. This is why Jiménez Carrero uses a 35-70 for his portraits. To zoom in and out as the view presents itself. And it is with this same lens that we need to look at them.
Carnival portraits are full of life, and if life is to be distinguished in any way from still lifes, it is that it is in constant movement.
To demonstrate this, J. Carrero has framed a dog. A hunting setter who cannot stand still. Now it pokes its head out, now it sticks out a paw. He wags his tail and shrinks his haunch again. So the painter has caught him halfway, so that we can decide whether we want to imagine him seated or upright and shaking off the summer heat with a wobble of his ears.
They are optional paintings, in which one understands that this 21st-century girl has had her mobile phone ring a couple of times between the basquiña. And you can see her, without difficulty, asking the artist for a time-out so that she can respond to the twitter. Vignettes that are in the paint without the need for the brushes to have left their mark. Just as we know that the little girl accompanying him, dressed like Margaret of Austria, has turned around on numerous occasions to heed the call of the swallows fluttering in the eaves of the window. Because in this painting by J. Carrero, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to stay in the main scene. Travelling to the window and into the rooms of the adjoining building is permitted. On the third floor, a Paraguayan caretaker dreams of having papers and enlarging a universe that is now reduced to the monotonous task of showering an old man every morning. In the second left, a 15-year-old celebrates being left alone for the weekend for the first time by his parents and is torn between the pleasure of throwing a party and the risk of getting caught.
They ring the doorbell of the first one and its inhabitant gasps, but doesn’t come. Not yet. He waits until there are three announcements before blushing as he approaches the door. Before opening the door, she goes back to touch up her hair, which she has already combed an infinite number of times, unsure of herself in front of the mirror. And she turns the knob as she wonders whether the boy who drives her crazy will finally decide to kiss her or whether she will have to be the one to take the initiative.
They are portraits of a carnival that lasts beyond February, because Carrero’s carnival reflects the popular festivity of the people at home. They are sparks of life that brighten feelings. Coca-Colas in oil. That’s why you feel like petting the dog, pinching the Infanta on the cheek and asking the protagonist why she got into this figurative business. Here, the painting is the least important thing. The frame is an apology.
Like the photo we take on holiday. An instant to evoke memories that last much longer. They go forwards and backwards, up and down – like roller coasters – and make one’s soul churn. Turning our affections upside down. Just as no one goes on holiday to take photos, but takes photos so that the holiday never ends; Carrero does not paint his pictures so that we cover a hole in the wall, but so that the walls never cease to cheer us up. To invite us to also zoom in on life so that next time (in addition to a Paraguayan who looks after our father), we will see in that naïve-looking boy who left his homeland for the sake of improvement, the unstoppable pulse of someone who also believes he has the right and the strength to change the course of events.
Guillermo Fesser
Journalist
The Carnival Meninas