Barrio Escalante, San José

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Protección Natural, by René Martín. A colossally scaled orange dominates the vertical plane, crowned by a botanical parasol that sprouts from its own stem and unfolds like a protective dome.
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René Martín

Protección NaturalSold

Year
2014
Technique
Acrylic/Canvas
Dimensions
100 × 80 cm
Status
Sold
Palette
yellow-orange, olive green, slate gray, earthy brown, cloud white
Brushwork
Polished and meticulous brushwork, with diffused glazes in the atmosphere and a pointillist texture of fine impasto on the citrus peel.

Curatorial analysis

A colossally scaled orange dominates the vertical plane, crowned by a botanical parasol that sprouts from its own stem and unfolds like a protective dome. Beneath it, a minuscule circle of fresh green grass survives as a solitary oasis amid soil severely cracked by drought. In the background, a stormy sky charged with dark clouds and flashes of lightning underscores the imminence of the tempest, immediately tightening the tension between atmospheric desolation and intimate shelter.

The acrylic medium is handled here with an almost tactile meticulousness that pursues volumetric illusion without relinquishing the strangeness of artifice. The skin of the fruit reveals hundreds of tiny pores, specular highlights, and gradients ranging from radiant yellow to deep orange, endowing it with an internal luminosity that defies the surrounding gloom. This warm, perfect sphericity collides with the fractured geometry of parched mud, rendered in pale tones and earthy grays. Above, the foliar canopy, with pale veins and taut folds reminiscent of banana or plantain leaves, exhibits a tense rigidity suspended between biological engineering and fantastical sculpture.

In this intersection of monumental still life and visual fable, the painting proposes a poignant allegory on ecological resilience and the autonomy of life. The fruit is not a passive object destined for consumption, but a self-sufficient organism that casts its own shadow, retains its moisture, and shields its immediate ground from climatic hostility. Confronting the external cataclysm, the work suspends a fragile moment of balance where nature deploys its own mechanisms to preserve vitality, recalling that the perseverance of the living often stems from its capacity to invent its own shelter.

Protección Natural

More works by René Martín

8 works

Available works

Sold and historical

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