This work is a good example of the shift Muñoz’s practice underwent in the 1980s when his palette become notably brighter and clearer, as demonstrated in the 1981 show at Galería Juana Mordó, and when he made fantastic landscapes in which one can perceive echoes of the countryside of La Mancha he painted in the early stages of his career. Here one is struck by the strong contrast with his previous works, much darker and laden with pathos, and in which he even scorched the wood support of his painting.

Muñoz’s heightened interest in material is largely owing to his non-objective beginnings. In Paris he came across and openly embraced

 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 introduced it into Spain just when the El Paso group was being created.

For Muñoz wood is not just a mere support for his work, but a material he gouges, scratches and splinters in order to achieve a number of visual and tactile qualities.

Blanco fin is fraught with ambivalence, at once capable of transmitting a sense of optimism and calm, yet also alluding to death through the use of white, which is identified with mourning in many cultures. Light illuminates this mysterious iconography, even more disturbing for the plausibility of the painterly space. The white, blinding nebula is crossed by three beings as they walk towards that “white ending” of the title.

In one of the last texts he wrote before his death, the artist described the image as follows: “I was thinking of a being capable of carrying day or night with his body. It would be a mixture of a large bird and a corporealised atmospheric phenomenon. It would not be horrific, but natural like a storm and elegant like the eagle […] I created the structure, prepared a suitable painterly space, and then I almost flung it at the painting, where it had to settle, to adapt itself to the habitability of the space.”