This is a superb example of the work of Francisco Farreras, an artist who created a totally personal abstract language.

Farreras’ creative process takes place in dialogue with the work in the making without any preparatory sketches. For this artist, creativity is not a matter of imitating external reality, but in revealing the image of the world that lies dormant in his subconscious. In that act of revealing his own image of the world and as he advances in his career, the painter’s traditional tools are replaced by paper, cardboard, fabric and wood.

Farreras settled in Madrid in 1971. As from that year and throughout the rest of the decade he would reach maturity as an artist. His practice acknowledged the experience acquired on his many journeys, including two stays in Paris in the 1950s and another in New York in the mid-1960s that gave him a chance to acquaint himself with the international avant-garde,

 art autre 

and art informel are terms coined by the French art critic Michael Tapié to describe the non-

 Geometric Abstraction 

A term introduced in the 1920s to name a kind of abstract art based on scientific and mathematical principles. The main goal was to eliminate all subjectivity in favour of art based on the essence of geometric forms. Its main champions were Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).

that emerged in France in the 1950s, running parallel to US

 Abstract Expressionism 

This contemporary painting movement emerged within the field of abstraction in the 1940s in the United States, from where it spread worldwide. Rooted in similar premises and postulates as Surrealism, the Abstract Expressionist artists regarded the act of painting as a spontaneous and unconscious activity, a dynamic bodily action divested of any kind of prior planning. The works belonging to this movement are defined by the use of pure, vibrant primary colours that convey a profound sense of freedom. The movement’s main pioneers were, among others, Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) and Hans Hoffman (1880-1966). Leading Spanish exponents of the movement are Esteban Vicente (1903-2001) and José Guerrero (1914-1991), who lived for some time in New York City, where they were in first-hand contact with the many artistic innovations taking place there around that time.

. It was predicated on the spontaneous gesture, the use of matter, automatism and the lack of preconceived ideas.

and .

In the mid-seventies, he gradually abandoned the flatness of his collages, replacing it with the volume of his coudrages. That evolution is clearly traceable in his works in the BBVA Collection, ranging from the pieces from the fifties—the period of his earlier collages more in tune with , made with silk paper on a dark background— and the seventies —with brighter works created with complex paper, glue and cardboard textures— to, for instance, this work from 1986 where texture is more settled and cedes the main role to three-dimensionality. This period was a turning point in his career and coincided with the creation, in 1984, of a large mural- for the airport in Madrid.

In this work, the planes are built with fragments of canvas sewn together with the stitches on the fabric replacing the line. The cardboard is seen under the canvas in the bottom section, adding textures to the piece. The ensemble remains poised between imperfection and balance, succeeding in turning the two into a single whole.