Inauguration of Román Francés (March 16th, 1012)

“20 years later”. Yes, it has been a long time since Jose Miguel ROMÁN FRANCÉS had exhibited at the Rusiñol Gallery. Now, exactly 20 years later, he is doing it again, and with a very high quality. —I hope that we will not have to wait twenty years again to see his work!, said Ignasi Cabanas.

“When winter is over and spring approaches, it’s a good time to be able to talk about the paintings by José Miguel Román Francés (the artist uses both surnames and is well-known through them). Since his work brings the bloom of nature and has the warmth of the sun which is reborn every morning so as to make sense of continued renewal in everything it touches” (from the writings of Josep Maria Cadena).

Looking at Román Francés’ paintings tempts us to think of Mediterranean lighting, which is present in all his work. Josep Mª Cadena compared them to a verse by Unamuno, saying: “Levantinos, the aesthetic overwhelms you”. —No!, the aesthetic does not engulf them José Miguel uses aesthetics to explain the beauty of the world, the beauty of people… He is fortunate to live in an idyllic place, splendid… Should we live where he lives, we would be painting one of Román Francés’ paintings: his paintings express what is going on around him.

“Román Francés proved very soon that as far as he was concerned his means to express the beauty of the world and of the female youth that he wished to capture, were drawing and painting (…). With his will to grow through the study of the great masters he found at the Museo del Prado of Madrid, with critical willpower (…) he drank in the classical figuration and he learnt to respect whichever work that was sincere, although having already decided he would move within the Mediterranean type figuration and realism, he felt as his own (from the review by Josep Mª Cadena).

Román Francés: —Trying to explain painting is somewhat surrealist because there it is, painted! I am not much interested in many explanations; there is a lot of feeling inside: one day you get up, you want to paint something and you paint it… To a certain extent, it gives me the chills to show my work: I find it hard to show it because it is mine. —He was asked for the model appearing in almost all his paintings: —I met her at a restaurant. She asked me why did I look at her so intently! It is not easy to find a model, because sometimes she is not photogenic. In the case of this one, for each photograph I could use five! In just one summer I took some ten thousand pictures of her.