Inauguration of Joan Mas (April 4th 2014)

The painter Joan Mas has come back to the Rusiñol Gallery after six years. An expected return! Earlier he had exhibited here several times, since the beginnings of this Gallery. Ignasi Cabanas has presented the painter as “half French and half Catalan”: although he was born in Barcelona, he has worked for a long time in France. During these years he has experienced an interesting evolution…

We still haven’t got a “quick profile” of Joan Mas for our blog. In this photo we see him at the time of the interview “4 notes of… Joan Mas” (Fast and direct answers of the artist). In these responses many friendly and very interesting details of Joan Mas’ life emerge. For example, the memory of when he went hitch hiking to Paris in 1959. Bon voyage!

According to Mr. Josep Mª Cadena, “it is easy to talk about Joan Mas’ paintings. While looking back, we all remember our childhood and youth: years when we open our eyes to the world and when we believe everything without questioning, even though afterwards we review them… Until we become adults and then we start asking ourselves why are we not like children anymore? This is part of the painting of Joan Mas. He paints creatures: this is the time when the child feels himself as involved and shaping society around him”.

Josep Mª Cadena: “Joan Mas does not look at individuals, but always at groups of people, creating, thus, a sort of collective personification. For this reason, terraces in the streets that speak of group involvement are to be seen in his paintings. In addition, nature is always present there: Joan always captures a particular moment of the existence of collective life of the cities, but always connected with nature” (thus, we can see landscapes of France surrounded by mist…).

It is time to hear the words of the artist! The theme that stands out most is perhaps the bluish grey background of his paintings that transmits a particularly lovely feeling to his work. It all can be explained: “One day, in Paris —fifty years ago already— there was an afternoon with a very particular grey: mixture of gold, silver, lead, bronze… Ten minutes after it started to snow. It impressed me greatly; newspapers spoke about it. From that moment on I chose this bluish grey. For many years I have been inspired by that sky”.