WORK ON PAPER: 1987-2002

THE DRAWING, THE GLANCE, THE FEELING. Drawing is a way of speaking, and sometimes even of meditation. It is also an intimate liberation from the corsets that other disciplines impose upon us. In drawing one is allowed to make mistakes and from them a lot of different things can happen. When you draw you do not have to follow a particular path or be consistent. Instead you can naturally establish a very direct and real relationship with your materials. This is a relationship, in which you can express you most intimate fears and desires, perhaps led by the vulnerability of the ink or the pencil on the paper. Drawings are both private and escapist. Sometimes they are simple notes. At other times they are more complex thoughts that pay attention to harmony rather than beauty. Joan Hernández Pijuán is an artist who paints and draws at the same time. His strokes, both on paper and on canvas, may look spontaneous, but never gratuitous. His need for discipline, control and balance are key when looking at his pictures, when understanding his language, when hearing the unspoken. Joan Hernández Pijuán has always refused to become the subject of any artisitc theory, searching for a way to experience his art and to express his particular mythology. As a painter he is aware that art is always an intimate story, a private project, a personal adventure. The colour in the drawings of Joan Pijuán Hernandez are evocative; he uses them as though he is trying to express a feeling or a scent. The lines and strokes lend a certain rhythm to the essential elements, and mark the space like a distant song, like a silent sound. The colours too create an image that is understood by the glance and the mind simultaneously. The images are never provocative, but instead require the viewer to embrace, reject or admire them, whilst remaining in an emotional sphere, which illustrates how closely his art is intertwined with his life. When I think about Joan’s works, I think that the only thing they require from us is time. For Joan Hernández Pijuán neither paints nor draws what he sees, but what he feels.

María de Corral (2003)