At the beginning of 2005 I began work on two projects almost simultaneously: one of them a painting project based on three-dimensional structures transferred onto canvas, and another on the creation of large format terrestrial sculptures.My intention was to modify the course of my work and the direction that my sculpture was taking: most of my work in large volumes involved aerial sculptures.As is usual with simultaneous projects, an extremely useful and necessary feedback occurred: the information that arose from one became essential for the other.In the middle of the year I managed to make progress with this new stage in my painting; I had understood myself and ideas began to flow. I was formatting the canvasses in a different way. The large sculptures were still struggling to emerge.

Around mid-2007, when I was still immersed in this process, Galería de las Misiones came up with a proposal that was as interesting as it was unusual: an exhibition in José Ignacio, in October; a time of the year when the season is nowhere in sight, a secluded spot in a amazing environment…

The opportunity to see my work outside the studio in an excellent exhibition hall, with enough time to organize myself and my work was undoubtedly a very healthy proposition. The two projects had coexisted in my studio for over two years, and I needed to give them some fresh air, to look at them in a different atmosphere.

The first weekend in September saw me in José Ignacio. The village was almost uninhabited, the gallery half-empty. I turned on the lights, shifted a sculpture by Pascale and saw a magnificent marble sculpture by Archugarri outdoors, whose outline was hardly distinguishable from the grey sky. I thought: this is going to be a great place to take a fresh look at my work. Seeing the horizon from the room was a pleasure; the effect is a great sense of space on the work which is otherwise very hard to accomplish.
The setup of two interrelated projects is no mean feat, because it is so easy to miss details and situations that are obvious once the exhibition is over.

Dufy’s birdcages

Painting or drawing with a plan or with a preconceived idea is something that I had never done until now. The pleasure of facing an empty surface and not knowing what will happen there is great. But what happens when we apply a format, if we draw clear guidelines over which the drawings are going to fit?
What happens if we apply tension, if we bow the weighing scales towards one side? It was then that I decided to paint with a preconceived idea, creating three-dimensional structures (with 3 D software) to support the drawings and paintings. That was the plan.

I built something that resembled the structures of a building, beams and pillars without the masonry, I used a wide angled lens on them and transferred them onto the canvass. The sensation of vertigo was immediate.

The first thing I saw in the paintings was cages with individuals inside them or running through them, with the load of stress of those who are locked up and fleeing through a huge cage, which is always inescapable. The subjects implanted in the matrices were in permanent flight, they found no rest or respite.

The second thing that happened to me in counterpoint was the memory of a Raoul Dufy watercolour at my mother’s; a happy birdcage with colorful, serene birds; a place of joy and happiness, as surely that house had been for me during childhood; happiness in the naiveté of being walled in. I soon dropped the structures and began painting freely again. Somehow though, I had corsetted the surface and a geometrical system had set in.

For many of my friends who knew my previous work, this new phase seemed claustrophobic. I agreed with them, but the changes that had taken place meant that there was no turning back; the way out was elsewhere. I had left a place of repose and meditation and got into trouble.

At the time, a strange event was going on. Avian influenza broke out, and the news was full of scientists, or at least, dudes dressed in white tunics, explaining how the virus could mutate and practically wipe out a large portion of the human race. I saw thousands of birds being sacrificed preventively, while a magical drug arrived to save us from a yet non-existent virus. The laboratory made millions of dollars, while the birds were thrown into black bags; an incredible mise-en-scene that influenced many of the paintings of that series and their titles.

What sense is there in modifying something that is right, in transforming it into something that does not seem so right, knowing that one will be unable to return to the point of departure? What sense is there (beyond an assumption of superior evolution) in the idea that we can improve it all, that things are perfectible, in situations where we are clearly going to spoil it all? It is like wanting to break down the box we are in, only to realize that there is a larger one that contains us, and yet another one...

I titled this series “Dufy´s birdcages”, as a reminder of that watercolour and the good and innocent days when birds and humans shared happier times.


The trees of barbarism and twisted towers

The sole idea of building sculptures in a huge scale, in a format that is greater than human, that endures the most extreme weather conditions and lasts through time is fascinating and common to most sculptors. However, this idea had never moved me much personally. I had even discarded it, maybe because it was clear to me how much work was involved in great scale projects.

In “Objectum” I had worked on perfecting my modelling for foundry, and small mechanical beings appeared, with mobile parts. As in previous stages, this was about a system of compatible parts to build with. A work of utmost patience, almost labourtherapy. During this stage, I moved the studio into the kitchen, used the microwave oven for the ceramics, and I worked while listening to music and cooking; a sort of technical minimalism.

However, in February 2005 a friend called from the US with a proposal to draft a five or six meter terrestrial sculpture. A small city in the state of Florida, had decided to improve itself with large sculptures, and was calling for projects. I began designing immediately and many interesting ideas came up, but the deadlines were too close and we couldn’t make it. By then my paintings had moved on considerably; drawings appeared on the canvasses that were clearly future materializations in sculpture, so I transferred those drawings onto my copybooks and opened a parallel research phase. The idea of building had grabbed me.

The first design that came up was a great obelisc, with a wind-powered head, a weather vane, a huge weather vane six meters high, marking the cardinal points and the wind direction; a Gothic piece with two arms, a tail and a lightning rod at the top.
During all of this first stage, I maintained a constructive dichotomy between the base and the head of the sculpture. I tried to build this piece, or at least to find out how to do it, exchanging ideas with engineers. Somehow I solved most of the technical and building problems; but the dimensions overwhelmed me, mainly because there was so little I could do on my own, and I was still used to resolving my works personally.

From this point onwards I did nothing but think, I took long walks on the beach and I thought; if the ideas were good, I walked faster. Sometimes I got stuck in the sand and knew that something would not work or that it would entail more time and endless complications. When I got home I drew, filling up notebook after notebook with ideas, possible materials, with possibilities within possibilities.

Finally, I chose the hard way. A unit made of small parts, a huge puzzle; or rather a series of huge puzzles - crystallization, fragmentation. I had seen this in Islamic art; kaleidoscopic multiplication, perfect geometry where a succession of parts erects the whole. But the minute modifications caused by moving one part onto the next one multiplied, and what was meant to be a straight line was now a helical curve. Nothing was what it was supposed to be.

The transfer of objects from a virtual plane to the “real” one (so to speak) has been constant in my work, i.e., generating something on the computer, materially building it, and then scanning it and re-entering into the machine. This way of working induces controlled errors, and the results are often unexpected. The assemblage of a model for the first time is a big event, as it is so difficult to foresee how it will behave.

After building more than ten models based on different ideas, deciding which one I was going to build first, was not at all easy. The transition from the models to a larger scale implies creating a system that will join and sustain the parts, and generate unity.
After much wondering, I decided on the twisted towers, a project that seemed more manageable, so I began this one first. One of the most pleasant surprises this work gave me was that once the setup finished I was able to correct the curves, using an unplanned variation of the securement systems. I used two wrenches and a ladder to force or soften the preestablished curves. And again, another unexpected and inexact element provided yet another shift in the project.

Many of the movements and musings that led me to all this ended up providing the elements to finalize it. It was very healthy to take a step back and observe the process. At a certain point I felt the need to take distance from what was built and ask myself what exactly happened here, particularly because of the many fortuitous elements that gave the impression of cold calculation.

In the past decade a great deal of computer and peripheral execution software was developed that allow very precise calculations and transfers to materials. This is a tremendous help for large format projects. However, precision here seemed to be a symbol of boredom. The plotter draws the same file many times and the circle is always the same. But what happens if we shake the plotter while it is drawing a perfect circle and we repeat this circle after circle? They are not perfect anymore. What happens if we scan these imperfect circles and we reintroduce them into the computer? What appears to be repetition is no longer, and what appears to be the same is now different. This is where tension arises from discrepancies, what should be straight is crooked, and what should be perfect is perfect no longer.

I think both projects led me to the same issue: to the deterioration of things, to the inverted clock that marks birth in perfection, and then finds no other way but to become corrupted and deteriorated, maybe to reflect its surroundings. If things are straight, we should know what happens when we bend them, if the foundations are healthy, we should know what occurs when we make them diseased.

It is nevertheless complicated to turn around, and once we take one direction, we cannot turn back. Building, destroying and rebuilding seems to be the fake feeling of evolution that we carry with us. The idea that everything will be perfected in the future, that knowledge will save us, that we are on the road to becoming better beings is taking us at a great speed towards what does not look like a good destination. It may be otherwise, but only when the clock completes its cycle and it all begins once again.

Daniel Escardó