FORMA HERIDA 

Curator: We’re now standing in front of Ramón Oviedo’s striking work, "FORMA HERIDA," created with oil paint, exemplifying Abstract Expressionism. Editor: Oh, my goodness. That raw, visceral feel—it hits you right in the gut. It's a wild dance of light and shadow; like a storm brewing in the soul. Is this painted on canvas or wood? You can tell from the intensity of color that its creation had some element of struggle involved. Curator: Indeed, it’s on canvas, and the visible texture suggests Oviedo worked the surface extensively, perhaps layering and scraping the paint. Think about the availability and affordability of paint itself at the time, and what choosing these shades might represent regarding class status, social values, and what resources an artist might rely on to find his paints. I read a very similar book from Princeton University where… Editor: Before you dig into it; is there something injured in its structure? Because the canvas looks quite wounded… This almost reminds me of deconstructing old things like ships with rusted metal or abandoned castles taken over by trees and foliage; it's chaos, yes, but one charged with so much history! You almost want to get lost and wander in. Curator: "Wounded Form" encapsulates the raw emotionality that fueled much Abstract Expressionist work. The painting technique seems to emphasize process and materiality, underscoring both creation and… potential deconstruction? Is the layering there as some visual analogy to what someone's mindstate is? Or does Oviedo simply start by making lines on blank canvases to later fill space from? There must be a story there. Editor: Exactly! What was Oviedo experiencing that inspired such passionate mark-making? Or perhaps is he exploring something about our shared, often fractured humanity? Perhaps what inspires this sense of injury is the very construction of a place from memory where a specific moment is revisited to be seen and deconstructed on repeat like therapy—it feels therapeutic but it's so raw. I wonder why. Curator: Right. Oviedo's work moves beyond formal composition. We see the residue of artistic labor embedded into each application and decision—layer upon layer of the materiality involved within a piece. This invites an engagement with art history, consumerism in art supply and labor. And ultimately makes you stop to wonder how an artwork’s meaning becomes negotiated across different positions over time and within cultural environments—because how an artist from then builds an art supply cache is quite different than someone from now! Editor: Precisely, because how can anyone resist a visceral journey through something that has to say a great deal—or say absolutely nothing, it's your decision. Art isn't simply the beauty created, it also is the mess in the background that nobody else notices other than yourself. But at the end, it helps give meaning to things bigger than me... which this canvas just successfully accomplished for now!