Laurent Jiménez-Balaguer
| Laurent Jiménez-Balaguer | |
|---|---|
Jiménez-Balaguer From Infinity to Infinity 2011
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| Born |
Llorenç Jiménez-Balaguer 14 January 1928 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain |
| Died | 16 April 2015 (aged 87) |
| Nationality | Hispanic |
| Known for | painting |
| Notable work | Clotted Memory, Through the Mirror N°23, The Crack of the World, What’s hiding ? |
| Movement | Abstract Expressionism, Informalism, Humanism, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism, New Informalism |
Laurent Jiménez-Balaguer (January 14, 1928 – 16 April 2015) Born in L’Hospitalet del Llobregat, Barcelona (Catalonia), Spain. He lives and works in Paris. During the 1950s, he is one of the most distinguished painters of Catalan art, known for creating a private language. He belongs to the Abstract Expressionism and European Informalism. These postmodern vanguardists have been characterized by their multiculturalism, manifested in their contrasting pictorial textures, and the need to invent a new mindset.
Jiménez-Balaguer’s purpose is to establish a framework of knowledge of the human psyche based on Ferdinand de Saussure’s language model, in order to show how painting is a universal medium for the understanding of the Self. He regards the construct of the Self as indispensable, and its visualization as vital; the human inner is neither an impalpable, untouchable soul nor an invisible, immaterial ego.
His conception of creation and society inscribe him in a process of a permanent revolution, from which the subject must struggle for the construction of the Self. His work asserts that the Self is a performative act. Jose María Moreno Galván in 1960 considered him one of the twenty most talented painters of Contemporary Catalan Art.
Two fundamental archetypes structure his field: the Body-Memory and the Exterior-Interior.
Early on, Jiménez-Balaguer paints androgynous figures that exude a metaphysical sentiment. His portraits emphasize what is within, unmarked by gender or cultural identity. Like El Greco, one of his artistic references, he seeks the transcendental essence of being. In 1955, he abandons all description of the world in order to focus on the problem of transforming the invisible to visible. He considers that painting allows for true knowledge of oneself, with the projection of raw material.
Following the parameters of Western philosophy, he thinks that all expression is an expression of something; therefore, the sign refers to a reality that constructs the object at the same time as the meaning.
According to this tradition, everything is related and has its corresponding channels: everything is connected and meaning is constructed by analogy. His concept of Other Reality arises from here, as well as his work regarding boundaries and the concept of limit.
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