Barrio Escalante, San José

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Tiovivo, by Rafael Fernández. A deep, restless cobalt blue devours nearly the entire background, functioning not as a recognizable architectural space, but as an oneiric void where forms appear to float weightlessly.
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Rafael Fernández

TiovivoSold

Year
2015
Technique
Oil/Canvas
Dimensions
50 × 40 cm
Collection
Mágica
Status
Sold
Palette
cobalt blue, greenish yellow, carmine red, chalk white, golden ochre
Brushwork
Dense impastos worked with open brushstrokes, superficial scrapings, and spontaneous drawing lines.

Curatorial analysis

A deep, restless cobalt blue devours nearly the entire background, functioning not as a recognizable architectural space, but as an oneiric void where forms appear to float weightlessly. Against this dense nocturnal atmosphere bursts a figure clad in a lemon-yellow costume, shrill and luminous, crowned by a vermilion headpiece with rough edges. The chromatic confrontation avoids gentle transitions; it operates through a deliberate friction between primary and secondary hues that destabilizes vision before the viewer can articulate the figurative elements.

The vertical axis of the golden pole cuts the composition from top to bottom, introducing a rigidity that contrasts with the organic fluidity of the rest of the canvas. Leaning against this mechanical structure, the figure arches in a restrained embrace over the neck of the white horse. Its silhouette, defined by agile impastos and incised lines that reveal underlying layers of paint, translates an ambiguous gestural posture: a sway between childhood delight and profound solitude. The head of the wooden steed, adorned with small stars on its ears and yellow harness straps, reveals an elliptical eye fixed in an absorbed gaze, suspended in melancholic stillness.

The pictorial matter exhibits a tactile and uninhibited application, where the palette knife and heavily loaded brush leave palpable traces across the canvas. The whites of the steed and the figure's face accumulate a compact relief that catches frontal light, while the mount's hindquarters dissolve into earthy stains and calligraphic filaments. Rather than capturing the bustling cheer of a fairground, the scene distills the contraption into its most intimate core, transforming the mechanical turn into a suspended territory of memory, silence, and mystery.

Tiovivo

More works by Rafael Fernández

56 works

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View all 56 works by Rafael Fernández

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