Barrio Escalante, San José

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La Mirada, by José Miguel Rojas. Two dark, almost cavernous eye sockets pierce the luminous mass of the canvas and claim absolute command of the space.

José Miguel Rojas

La MiradaInquire about availability

Year
2015
Technique
Oil/Canvas
Dimensions
122 × 91 cm
Status
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Palette
titanium white, warm grey, carbon black, raw umber, ash grey
Brushwork
Dense planes of white impasto firmly applied in contrast to dry linear strokes and drips of diluted oil paint.

Curatorial analysis

Two dark, almost cavernous eye sockets pierce the luminous mass of the canvas and claim absolute command of the space. The gaze not only gives the painting its title, but acts as the gravitational axis of a monumental head that saturates the vertical format. The deep shadows of the eyes, resolved in dry blacks and grayish umbers, concentrate a frontal tension that admits no detour: the face confronts the viewer with an unrelenting, austere intensity.

The physiognomic construction is resolved through a clear tension between material impasto and the lightness of the support. Rojas sculpts the cranial surface with dense layers of pure white, laid down in sharp planes that model the convex forehead, the cheekbones, and the firmness of the chin. This solid, almost marble-like architecture contrasts with the silent neutrality of the gray background, a monochromatic plane that suppresses any hint of spatial anecdote to isolate the figure. In contrast to the solidity of the face, toward the base of the neck and the shoulders the paint loses density; the thinned oil runs down in vertical drips that blur the bodily boundary and expose the pigment in its most liquid state.

This alternation between the impenetrable crust of the face and the fragile dripping of the base sustains the dramatic weight of the piece. The brief, sharp lines that mark the nasal bridge, the brow, and the tense corners of the mouth endow the head with an archetypal character, where energy resides not in gesture, but in containment. The painting dispenses with ornament to delve into the persistence of thought and the accumulated weight of time, turning a mature, severe face into a pictorial field of force that interrogates without blinking.

La Mirada

More works by José Miguel Rojas

21 works

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View all 21 works by José Miguel Rojas

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