Freixanes’ painting transcends the boundaries of the frame. His interest in the unknown led him to create a personal vernacular made up of signs. When working the canvas the artist takes into account aspects like space and colour as well as increasingly stylised objects removed from reality which he turns into symbols.

The work at hand is part of Cartografías, a series predicated on Ptolemy’s cartographies that Freixanes created in 1990 and exhibited at Galería Juana Mordó. His paintings are like maps in which the artist conjures up a way of defining unknown territories still waiting to be explored.

Standing out against a black background, the sketchy and fragmented silhouette of a giraffe is bent over a large ochre and densely glazed area: an island-like territory that it seems to be protecting. With a very few elements the artist condenses the connection between earth and animal, endowing both sign and form with a primordial iconic power.