Frec de Maloia 1990

Modest Cuixart made this painting called Frec de Maloia with oil on canvas, and it's a trip! I'm really drawn to the way he's built up this surface, like geological strata, these dark blues, greens, and browns. He’s laid down these crusty, wrinkly textures, these built-up gestures, that look like dried-up earth, or maybe even like ancient ruins. I can imagine Cuixart in his studio, wrestling with this canvas, adding layer upon layer, digging into the paint with his brush, scraping it away, building it up again. He was part of the Dau al Set movement in Spain, right? So you can see him in conversation with that history—the surrealists and the abstract expressionists. It's like he's unearthing something, but what is it? Maybe that’s for us to decide. Isn't it wild how one person's act of painting can ripple out through time?