New series of paintings

Acrylic on board, 17 x 33.5 cm (6.7 x 13 in.)

Familiar subject matter for Vicente Heca — a glass marble, gleaming striped fabric, folds and wrinkles — but now, allowing wood to show through the painted surface creates a breach in the polished veneer of hyperrealism. In other works the artist shows his love for worn, torn surfaces (the ragged edges of ripped paper, or sea-weathered wood and fishermen’s corks); here the painting surface itself embodies this quality. The painting is not merely an image of a worn, torn object; it is itself that object.

But for me the recent paintings are more than conceptual, more than minimalist, with their black and white and gray schemes. I read in a book about color symbolism in dreams (Dream Language by Robert J. Hoss) that gray often suggests a detachment from or concealment of the emotions. Yet in each painting, emotional content breaks through, as seen in the bright sparks of color enclosed within the marbles. In this small painting a veil has been delicately torn, exposing the rough, natural essence beneath the smooth surface of art and artfulness.

—Kendra Crossen

Valencia