“Next stop: Willougbi”. Such is the title of Juan Luis Jardí‘s just inaugurated exhibition at the Rusiñol Gallery. Mystery and disquiet, even “provocation, are sensations transmitted by this painter: he leaves no one indifferent. An evidence of this avowal was the long carousel of questions publicly proffered by the audience. What is Willougbi? Where is Willougbi? This is part of the “game” which Jardí introduces us to with his work.
The welcome. It was the first time that Juan Luis Jardí, even with his long trajectory -his first exhibition was when he was 16 years- was coming to the Rusiñol Gallery. Ignasi Cabanas emphasized that with Jardí «a new episode of our Gallery was opening: a style of painting that, despite being still figurative, enters the world of magic and mystery».
A man of a critical and nonconformist spirit with the “politically established” Josep Mª Cadena, started by praising the versatility of the Rusiñol Gallery: «¡It is something I have practiced since long!». Jardi’s painting moves along these lines «I met him many years ago. He is a man consistent with his beliefs. I am surprised at his realism: it has the strength to explain things as they are, not only as they look like; as they are and as they appear before others».
Maybe the magic element of Jardi’s work that mostly captivates the observer are the faces (and/or the figures) of the painted people, frequently repeated once, twice or even three times. According to Cadena, it is because it deals with «persons that at times can be three while, actually, they are only one and the same one. It happens that quite often driven by curiosity we become three -like some kind of “trinity”- pretending to find ourselves behaving differently in front of the several situations we face in our life».
The Rusiñol Gallery never disappoints anyone: even Juan Luis Jardí’s Magic was excelled by reality. María, Denisee and Eileen took care of that. Their Young and beautiful faces placed a “trilogy” to “The swing of the old house”.
Juan Luis Jardí had a few words of gratitude for all the audience, and especially for the Rusiñol Gallery and for Josep Mª Cadena. After his brief speech something rather unusual happened: a burst of questions from the audience. Such a surprising phenomenon (at times it is difficult to get even one question) was perhaps induced by something even more surprising: 8 years old María, opened fire and left us all with a heavy heart: -«This is not a question, but I would like to tell you that I like your paintings very much». -«Thank you very much», replied the artist. And so one and so forth… until thirteen more questions.MORE PHOTOS OF THE INAGURATION
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