Pablo Valle

Pablo Valle (Barcelona, 1979) studied Fine Art at the University of Cuenca, Spain. In 2000 / 2001 Gonzalo Cao, the university’s faculty professor, introduced me to a young man with a steady gaze, his eyes darker than coal. He never stopped painting fabrics and cardboard boxes in one of the classrooms. About five years later this painter was working with photographs found in boxes near his house in the Rastro area of Madrid. These photographs depicted individuals and groups of friends and families more than three generations ago. By complete chance, these individuals have been brought back to life, and perhaps to haunt us, though the canvases of Pablo Valle. The other day I sent a message to Pablo’s mobile saying: “I am thinking of the words of Juan Hernández Pijuan: When my paintings are full, I begin to search for the emptiness; when they are empty, I begin again.” This young painter has always been both flamboyant and detailed. His work has an element of pop art and a gives a lot of exposure to colour. However, in his second solo exhibition with us in 2009, he began to experiment with emptiness. Naked rooms without a single piece of furniture, interiors with their windows and doors opening up to the buildings beyond, or cities without a living soul, as if all of the inhabitants had been swallowed up by the earth. Rafael Pérez Hernando