PABLO REY. BIOGRAPHYCAL INTERVIEW WITH PILAR GIR.

(Historian and art critic). June 2008

Pablo Rey was born in 1968 into a family of artists, his father being the well known realist
painter Gabino. He took his first steps in art at the age of 13 although he would not discover
his real vocation for painting until he was 18.
Between 1987 and 1993, he made various journeys throughout Europe, to Paris, Switzerland,
Venice, Rome, Milan, Brussels, Florence, Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, with
the principal aim of visiting museums, art fairs and collections.
In 1994 he got a degree in fine art from Barcelona University and in 1996 went to live and work
in New York, settling in the post-industrial district of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a time when
this neighbourhood was becoming discovered, (because of its large run-down factories,
alongside cheap rented accommodation), by young emerging artists of all nationalities, where
they set up their studios. During these years, Williamsburg would become one of the parts of
New York, with the highest number of artists in the whole city. It was in this exciting melting
pot where our artist would create, paint, and make fundamental decisions about the direction
his work would take in the future.
Almost as soon as he arrived he made friends with the Spanish painters Fernando Molero and
Alex de Fluvi, the North American conjuror Christopher Baxter, the Dutch architect Mariska
Van Dalfsen, and the New York painter Luke Gray, with whom he would not only share a studio
but also a variety of experiences, revealing conversations and late-night parties.
In 1997 he took part in the The Grammercy International Art Fair of New York, with the
Pierogi 2000 Gallery from Brooklyn.
In 1998 he was selected alongside Larry Deyab, Milo Magnany, Tony Martin, Jan Mulder,
Jacques Roch, Paulien Lethen, Larry Webb and other NY artists to participate in the exhibition
New Tide in the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center of New York, an exhibition which later
travelled to the headquarters of the Netherlandche Bank of Amsterdam. This same year he
met Juan Usl with whom he would take part, along with Francisco Leiro, Peyo Irazu, Victoria
Civera, Pedro Mora and other artists, in the documentary film 98 in NY, made by Canal +,
about Spanish artists working in New York.
In 1999 he travelled by car from New York to Texas, a journey of two months which took him
down the whole of the east coast of the United States, to the Florida quays, and from there
across the plains of Texas, passing through the artistic and musical world of New Orleans. On
his return he exhibited his writings and travel diaries, in the Holland Tunnel Art Projects gallery
of NY.
In the year 2000, he decided to return to Spain, and moved into the Santa Catalina district of
Barcelona where he lived for two years. In the year 2002, as well as working in the family
studio in Barcelona, he also opened a studio in the town of Sant Feliu de Guxols on the Costa
Brava, where he spent long periods of time.
In Sant Feliu, he met the painter Xavier Ruscalleda, the sculptor Alberto de Udaeta and the
engraver and painter Marzo-Mart, and also re-established contact with an old friend, the
painter and curator, poet and writer or as he would prefer to describe himself; artistable,
Gens Cano. Through the architect and cultural agitator Joaqun Prez, he formed a deep

friendship with the painters Alex Pall-Vert, Lus Trullenque, Gerardo San Martn, Franois Egly,
as well as the sculptor Nei Albert, and the poet Carles Lapuente. All these active participants
of long nocturnal gatherings, a variety of gastronomic reunions, diverse celebrations, in other
words, of unforgettable dinner parties of all types, in all of which I also took part in and can
testify to.
In the year 2002 he met the gallery owner Carmen Tatch, with whom he exhibited on various
occasions, and in 2004, along with the painter from Huesca Lus Trullenque, put together the
exhibition titled Two painters on the same canvas a four-handed collaboration which was
shown in the spring of that year in the Castle of Benedormiens in Castell d Aro. In the year
2005 he did a post-graduate at the University of Barcelona; Painting and Reality with his friend
the photographer Andreu Catal-Roca and in the year 2008, he made a series of paintings
titled Espacio Regulador, which was shown in the gallery Km7 of Jos Luis Pascual.
His latest and most recent work is an exhibition titled Conjuncions a six-handed collaboration
with painters Luis Trullenque and Alex Pall, wich was show in the former monastery of Sant
Feliu de Guxols in the summer of 2009.

P.G. When did you first discover painting?

P.R. Quite late, when I was about 18, my father was a painter and there was always paint,
brushes and canvases around the house, I remember when I was 13 I took my first steps, and
painted a picture, but this was more incidental than a sign of vocation, but as nobody is a
prophet in their own land, I never really pursued it. Until, that was, the time came for me to do
my military service. Having finished my secondary school studies, I was due to enlist in
December, so I had the summer in front of me, but having to do my military service meant that
no-one was likely to give me a job and neither could I enroll for the next course. So my mother
suggested that I accompany my father and help him with the equipment while he was engaged
in his summer project. At first I took a book with me and while he was involved with his
painting, I would sit reading under a pine tree. But one day, I still dont know why, I not only
carried the materials but also started to paint, and I suddenly realized that this was what I
wanted to do in life, from then on this is what I have done. The truth is that it was thanks to
my mother that I found my true vocation; I sometimes think that if it hadnt been for her I
would still be wandering around without knowing what I wanted to do in life.
P.G. When you started painting, what was your relationship like with your father?
P.R. Well, I always say that my beginnings were rather old school, like an apprentice working in
the masters studio. The basic skills I learned from my father, either painting outside in the
open or in the studio. Although one of the most important lessons I can remember was not
technical, but about the honesty and integrity in the way he worked, being a man who could, if
hed wanted to, have produced work that was facile, though he never did, he was always
engaged in a struggle with the canvas as if he were painting for the first time, as if he didnt
even know how to paint. I also remember that he insisted on the importance of drawing and
pictorial structure, he made me draw daily from nature, I went every day for almost five years
to the circle Sant Lluc to do life drawing , I liked most of all those where we only had 5 or 10

minutes. Later through my studies at University and after moving to New York I began to make
my own way, in a more independent sense and disconnected from that of my father.
P.G. Now that youve mentioned New York, how much of its influence remains in your work?
P.R. All the experiences one has in life shape and influence us. That of living in New York was of
course tremendously important to me, above all for two reasons: I was the son of a painter
and needed, in psychoanalytic terms, to kill my own father, to create a distance which would
enable me to create my own work. It was New York, although it could have been any other
city, which allowed me to do this. Aside from this its always interesting to live in a city in
which art plays such an important role, both for the number of galleries and museums, as for
the many artists from all over the world who work there. What remains is the analysis of
contrasting worlds. The weight of tradition is very heavy in Europe, while in the United States
its the opposite, finding a balance has been fundamental to me. I think it was the United
States which showed me the value of risk and experimentation, the importance of daring to try
out new things. In this respect they are freer, even free to make mistakes. I think its very
important to experience this atmosphere in order to learn to fly, even if you have to crash
occasionally. In art, as Chillida once told me quoting Mir, one shouldnt be afraid of walking in
the dark. Art, for me, is associated with mystery and the only way to enter is by throwing
oneself in and getting lost. Art has to be about taking risks.
P.G. Five years have passed between the first exhibition you made after returning from NY at
the Carmen Tatch gallery, and the most recent which you showed this spring at the Km7
gallery. Time enough to have permitted developments in your artistic expression while
maintaining links with the previous work. The spectator who has been following your work will
see that there still remains a trace of New York, but there is a vast difference between the
Correction series in that exhibition and the Espacio Regulador in the latest one.
P.R. Of course, although they appear formally different in fact they are really quite similar. One
could think of my work as a kind of tree, with the artist being the trunk and from which grow
different branches. What really interests me is painting and so what I try to do is paint and I
believe that to accomplish this in the present day is a great achievement because both the
tradition and the history of painting is very long. Even just picking up a paintbrush means
having to be clear about what you are doing because its really quite a risky business. Perhaps
the changes in my work are largely formal but Im very interested in painting and have tried
not to move away from it.
P.G. A spectator can also enter your work and get lost in it, being as they are pictorial surfaces
with no particular centre. This structural decentralisation of your work seems in some way to
be related to current philosophical ideas about the present time, being conscious that there is
not just one truth, and that its possible to create ones own personal reality. I dont know if
they can be read as being your opinion on the present.
P.R. In this sense, yes. Centralisation seems rather undemocratic. That there are different
centres, also on an aesthetic level, I think is quite similar to the society in which we live,
because one of the things Im concerned with in my work is freedom, especially in the most
recent pieces. These pictures dont follow any fixed rules as to how they are made, they are
fluid, self-organising and dont obey any pre-established norms. Getting rid of the concept of a
centre is also connected with my experience of being in the United States. The all over look
of Pollocks work interests me quite a lot and my work reflects this. Im not interested in there

being a fixed point around which everything revolves. I think of my paintings as universes with
multiple galaxies in constant movement and transformation.
P.G. Its quite surprising that on the one hand your work is absolutely contemporary, treating
as it does themes as political as that of decentralisation while on the other hand dealing with
such classical issues as that of recuperating painting itself, separated from the purely pictorial.
P.R. I think that the problem with many contemporary painters is that they have gone off on a
tangent. Nothing comes from nothing and I can understand that daring to bring something
new to the body of painting, using brushes and colour, is not easy. But this is precisely the
challenge and is why Im so interested in painting. Sometimes I see videos, photography,
installations and feel some empathy toward these disciplines, even to the extent of wanting to
try them out at some stage of my life; but the challenge in my case is painting. I suppose its
because I feel I was born a painter and I cant avoid it. Painting is the media in which I feel
most comfortable expressing myself, as well as stimulating me.
P.G. This great interest in painting is the reason for such an abstract body of work?
P.R. I think that all good painting, going back to Velazquez or even the Venetians, has always
been abstract. Therein lies its marvellous quality: that in reality it takes a great lie to create the
illusion of truth. Already with Czanne we can understand abstraction in more contemporary
terms, through the course of the last century it evolved at such a frenetic pace and now even
the field of virtual reality can be included in terms of abstraction. In trying to capture this other
virtual reality which new technologies are providing communication, perhaps another advance
in more modern terms will come about similar to that produced by the appearance of
perspective in the renaissance period. Here space comes into play, the other great theme
which fascinates me in painting, and which has been especially important in the development
of my own work. How elements fit together in these paintings, how they organise themselves
are questions which bring them close to similar problems also posed in quantum physics.
Sometimes I feel my paintings are made before I even paint them, as if in some way all I have
to do is uncover them.
P.G. Space is very important in your work, but time also features strongly.
P.R. In my paintings there is a time which grows out of a journey. I manage time as a concept:
the lines and shapes arrange themselves and in their space each element develops its own
slow tempo.
P.G., Do you think this space/time in your work is closer to an interior or exterior reality?
P.R. To both, but Im interested in talking about the exterior. I always call myself a realist
painter. What I paint isnt anything Ive invented, it already exists in nature and out in the
street. In graffiti, for example. Graffiti is another of the fundamental aspects of my work. Im
not a graffiti artist nor is it a question of graffiti produced by a painter, its about using a
resource from popular culture which I think connects with my expressive needs; in the same
way that lights from a motorway at night or tangled electric power lines can also appear in my
work. Im keen to keep in touch with whats going on around me.

P.G. Lets talk about what happens inside your paintings. In the series Estados Superpuestos
there is a kind of unity within each canvas, the lines flow continuously as if they were a
multitude of monologues all taking place at the same time, but in harmony; while in the series
Campo Policrnico, Estados Complementarios or Espacio Regulador the lines and shapes are
more like isolated words with which you invite the spectator to create their own dialogue.
P.R. Yes, Im interested in the idea of the spectator participating in the work. Regarding the
other, both the rational and the emotional sides of me are very strong, the ideal would be to
balance them out, but this is not always easy to achieve. The paintings in Estados
Superpuestos seem more rational, though I feel them as being more emotional; on the other
hand, the others you mention give the feeling of being more emotional and yet are perhaps far
more rational. At any rate both these sides will always exist within my work.
Sometimes, so as to continue painting, a period of silence is necessary for reflection and the
preparation of another creation. Estados Superpuestos helped me, without this silence to
arrive at the Complementarios.
P.G. Another constant feature of your work is the coming together of the microcosm and the
macrocosm.
P.R. This is the way the world and the universe are. This is the mystery in life and also in my
pictures. In the latest pieces there are even different levels of representation. Formally an
element, in a picture, could as well be a patch of colour, an attitude, or a vibration, not just a
specific thing, but something which joins together with other things to create a whole, which is
where the micro joins the macro and vice versa. This, which interests me as an idea, also plays
a functional role in that it makes the work rich in contrasts.
P.G. These contrasts provoke a constant movement across the surface of the canvases. The
rich, bright colours, the lines floating on flat colour fields, delimit a space which is totally
habitable for the senses.
P.R. I use line as form. My line is something corresponding to the idea that Da Vinci had of
sfumatto, a place where drawing and painting come together. I see that the two are united in
my paintings, what appears as line is also colour and light. This creates the density of space
despite being on a flat surface. It isnt matter that most interests me, painting already has its
own matter and I dont want to add to it. For some time there has been less and less physical
matter in my work, even in the series Correction (1998-1999) what I was creating was an
emptiness of matter, because I was taking paint off rather than putting it on.
P.G. Throughout your artistic development it seems youve been trying more and more to
achieve the aim of painting in its pure state. Your colours are clean, the shapes dont give
rise to confusion, and neither does the palette.
P.R. My choice of colours is instinctive. As far as their application is concerned this relates to
my philosophy of not contaminating the painting. I want my painting to be clean, in the sense
that painting is already an interesting enough deception without adding more things which
would later create confusion. I am trying to achieve a purity and directness in my painting, and
in this latest body of work I feel Im speaking very clearly, that Im not tricking anyone and that
there is just the right amount of alchemy needed. Without losing sight of the fact that painting
is only a means and not an end in itself.