LII (2000) Painting by Cesar Aguilar (Raçe)

Avelina Lésper Art Critic
May 2010



Cesar Aguilar has created a special world that give shapes in his paintings to show to the viewer the mythology that governs it. It is not something alien to us, It involves references ranging from oriental manga, the sadism of the sexuality of postwar, to minotaurs and angels. This gathering of beings is developed in his paintings with a stroke that develops playful and sensual, creating atmospheres where converge the style of the manga with red and earth tones, copper and sienna tones on white background to build the altar of a bull. In the pictorial search for Cesar is the concern for current forms of expression, with its strong presence in the media and popular reference, and Cesar works on them to give them another reality, he remakes them to acquire a painting in another dimension that in the media would not have, and he leads them to more daring and violent possibilities.


Sacrifice is a ritual of substitution, whatever is destroyed gives way to something new arrives, to be reborn another possibility of life or shape. This sacrifice is present in the work of Cesar, we can see altars in which hearts are exposed to unknown and greedy gods, who expect that and more of his victims, women who are offered as gifts to meet their idols. The technology and science fiction, that fantasy of challenge and overcome God is a philosophy of images, that in many cases, there are the apocalyptic vision of this literature. But unlike science fiction, Cesar does not depart from the representation of the human figure, that is the center of his work. The bodies of women, someone who is removed from the chest the heart to show us his humanity behind a gas mask is the lighthouse that Cesar is not far to locate his work as a research building scenes to invent disturbing chapters.

Reality is not a problem, Cesar is not realistic, though his recreation of the human figure has all the care of proportion which denotes a good picture and a mastery of stroke, the painting of Cesar is at work to invent a world. In order to do that he is able to gather various characters together and he works for everyone to have the presence necessary to provide and maintain the set a difficult balance and harmony. The red backgrounds, with fleeting strokes, phrases and shadows create an aura that makes the spectral figures of a world in shock.
In some works, Cesar leaves the line drawn in the foreground on backgrounds that describe the soul of his characters, these backgrounds in red that are torn, which nullify the presence of something else to leap into the the desolation, this is a radiography of the depth of pain. In the background can be guessed buildings, structures are sensed beforehand, but that does not matter in a street and that loneliness goes unnoticed.

Cesar is not satisfied with what he sees, it is not enough this world that has not been given, he needs to invent another and he also needs to renew with each painting.

• Nationality: SPAIN
• Date of birth : 1969
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Spanish Artists