At the XXIII Salón Mi gallo de Morón, Ciego de Ávila, the prize was awarded to Matriarcal, a work by a young man who awakens the most disturbing muses of pictorial analysis and criticism.
This painting is a journey stopped in time, a scene which, although it seems simple, is presented as a threshold to the collective memory of the domestic, artisanal and human. It is not simply a still life; it is an evocation: the old teapot, rusty but dignified, the lighted lantern that resists the darkness, the white cup that suggests pause, encounter or calm, and that cart with fine wheels that seems to transport not only objects, but stories.
With this work, the young artist José Villamarín, a graduate of the first graduation of the academy of plastic arts in Morón, gives the word Matriarcal a deeper resonance. It is not only an allusion to gender or to a family order, it is about an atmosphere of care; of feminine centrality; of inheritance transmitted by hands that warm, nourish, illuminate. The simplest object – a teapot, a cup, a lamp – becomes here a symbol of affective authority, of the organisation of domestic space and time which, in so many cultures, has revolved around maternal figures. The work does not need human figures to speak of presence. Everything is inhabited by that soft but forceful energy of the matriarchal.
The use of a dense technique, with a palette knife, leads to a rough texture that feels almost tactile. This roughness is not an accident like the skin of objects. It is the weight of time adhering to their surfaces. The colours – ochres, oranges, deep browns – build a warm, but not complacent atmosphere; a warmth born of effort, of work, of the heat of the fire that melts metals and prepares infusions. In this sense, Matriarcal not only describes an order, it embodies it.
The wheels, all different, multiply the axes of reading and give the impression that the scene is about to be set in motion, as if the memory were not standing still, but moving forward, rolling, taking us with it. The lit lamp dominates the scene, a burning heart in the midst of a gloom that does not threaten, but envelops. Next to it, the white cup stands out not only for its colour, but for its symbolism, the human moment, the pause in the middle of work, the invisible communion between generations.
The background is misty, almost ghostly. There are no clear outlines in the buildings or figures that insinuate themselves behind. This pictorial haze not only contextualises, it transforms the space into a memory, into a place that is no longer physical, but emotional. What is in the background does not matter as much as what is in the foreground, and yet the background supports, gives weight, creates that dimension of depth that makes the whole feel like a dream passed through the filter of time.
Matriarcal is a work that needs no grand gestures to move. In the apparent stillness of his objects, in the texture of the oil, in the light emanating from his lantern, José Villamarín speaks to us of the essential; of time woven by invisible gestures; of the intimate legacy that sustains every community, and of art as a silent way of remembering who gave us warmth.
Written by Vasily MP
