Natura silenciosa 1976

Joan Ponc made this painting, Natura Silenciosa, with what looks like thin layers of oil paint, creating a warm, almost toasted orange ground. It’s the kind of color that hums, setting the stage for the enigmatic objects that occupy the space. There’s a tactile quality to the surface, even though the paint seems thinly applied. You can almost feel the slight drag of the brushstrokes, especially in the way the orange transitions into a darker horizon line. And that strange, totem-like structure – is it a building, a monument, or some kind of abstract figure? The way the light catches the edges of the shadow suggests a hard, defined form, but the colors within, those blues, greens, and reds, soften its presence. The circular motif in the upper right corner feels like a sun, but also like an eye, staring back at us. Ponc reminds me a bit of Paul Klee, both sharing a playful approach to form and color. Art, at its best, invites us into this kind of open-ended conversation, where meaning is never fixed but always evolving.