Víctor Manuel Guerra has been retracing the paths of portraiture for some time. First, he was investigating certain confluences that the collective imagination propitiated for him in terms of links between human beings and other beings. Establishing a kind of scenarios in which symbols and circumstances implied our association of metaphors, myths and daily actions, in pursuit of unraveling characters and natures of men and phenomena. By then the colors, values and brushstrokes of Víctor were not what they are today. In frank insistence on man and the mysteries of his essence, the young artist’s spontaneous and restless search for methods brought out intensity and multiplicity of mixtures. In these presentations of ins and outs and masquerades, the figures appeared as the protagonists of the composition -assisted by backgrounds as appoggiatura-, and from whole bodies or faces, even when they proposed to deal with postures and facets, they achieved our concentration on individual speeches or collective coincidences, which they beat behind the mask.
The intention of deciphering multiplicities and uncertainties continues to be one of his main starting points today, only from exercises of discovery as a result of direct experience with the model, in flesh and spirit, without other mediations than the psychic effluvia, or the image authentically revealing of the model’s circumstances. The meticulous study of the genre, from the historical legacies of the great European portrait painters and the indisputable imprint of his teacher Juan Miguel Suárez Rodríguez, have resulted in naturalistic, realistic and hyper-realistic appropriations.
The backgrounds are increasingly integrated with greater relevance to the figure. The bodies, faces, skin, limbs, gestures and secondary elements, achieve greater clarity depending on the notions to highlight. Emotions are becoming more palpable. The spirit of portraits provokes more and more our need to approach, explore and exchange.
Victor Manuel has reconfigured his views and has revealed not only his own angels and demons, but also his tools and language.
Yania Collazo Gonzalez,
specialist of the Provincial Council of Visual Arts
May 2019
