After his early works within the confines of , in the late seventies one can discern how the pure pleasure of painting takes possession of the canvas. He assimilated and fused Impressionism, , and US abstraction with an immersion in Mediterranean landscapes, which he engaged with thanks to the teachings of his master Juan Bonafé (1901-1969). The end result is a painting based primarily on colour, light and brushwork.

He normally works in thematic suites of pictures which he submits to detailed examination, including series dedicated to the painter’s studio, to bathers or the figure of Narcissus.

Geometry is downplayed in favour of a greater presence of light, and from the 1990s onwards, the figure, still life and landscape become the central subject matters in his painting, in some cases leaning towards abstraction.

Water is another recurrent motif in his work. For Albacete, water and paint are often one and the same thing, or, in his own words, “diving into the sea or diving into painting.” In this work with oil, the calmed waters of the painting manage to render the power of the waves.

Alfonso Albacete makes masterful use of the traditional Valencian fan, deploying a “wave” across it with the expressiveness and force that characterises the painter’s mature phase. This piece was painted for the exhibition Otros abanicos (Other Fans), promoted by Fundación Banco Exterior de España and held in 1985 at its exhibition hall in Madrid, which featured European fans and Chinesepai-pais decorated by twenty-nine artists.

The theme connects with another two works by the artist also in the BBVA Collection, Dos continentes n.º 7 – aguamarina and Narciso, though here he uses a more pared-down palette comprising ochre, orange and blue tones. In La ola, rendered with looser, freer brushwork, the figure and the sea are conflated in a dynamic abstraction. The still life, accentuated with blue shades that connect with the sea, seems to evoke a possible bather-painter whose representation oversteps the limits of the support with exquisite plasticity.