In a Glimpse: chain of moments

Ralph Bernabei, artist, painter and sculptor from NY, always offers us reasons for reflection; he has done so with Art and Connection , with Thoughts Like Clouds , with Quietud , with Art Unites , etc. Also with his magazine Outer Horizons , and he surprises us again now with this exhibition at the Horizon Gallery in Colera. This English expression indicates a quick, swift eye, capable of appreciating something in an instant. When art is linked to the physical fact of the gaze, the success is total.

Ralph Bernabei's very gaze is 'Glimpse'; he does it from the side, it is fulminating, directed, fast, capable of "scanning" reality in a second. This gesture of vision could be anecdotal, circumstantial, but it is not; on the contrary, it is a concept closely related to art and to his art.

Painting and sculpture are arts of the gaze, hence the great importance of this concept as an aesthetic category. I have often defended the need for the contemplation, leisurely, frontal and serene of the work of art, compared to the fast and deliberate pace we have when visiting an exhibition. We only seek to identify mentally what the thing is about and that's it. That's why it may seem a contradiction to praise speed, instantaneity, the corner of the eye as virtues. This needs an explanation.

The attentive gaze is fundamental, it is the basis of understanding and contemplation. Ralph Bernabei himself acts like this, seeking the time of "stillness" when it is convenient. But contemplative serenity, extensive time is not enough for Ralph Bernabei, and that is why the instant arises, the quick gaze capable of capturing the essence of a way in a moment. His work is a pure gesture, a body posture, a light, the movement of the air can only be captured in this state of attentive vigilance. What is fundamental appears and disappears in an instant and can only be captured through visual intuition. While in calm and stillness we want to reach it and interpret it, we here and it there. "In a Glimpse" seems to tell us that what we have seen possesses us before we can interpret it. Pure perception acts before conceptualization. In this brief lapse we are able to intuit what we have seen and there is no need to rationalize it.

In a way, it's like seeing lightning or a ghost. This way of not revealing everything, of picking up clues, is the way we have access to the absolute, to that which surpasses us, to the unknown.

This instantaneity of Ralph Bernabei has been able to capture in a magnificent photograph taken by Mireia Rodó and used for the exhibition poster, by designer Frido Steinen-Broo. We see the fleeting impression of a dark shadow, we guess a movement, it is that of the artist himself captured in a momentary gesture by the photographer's eye. She has exercised the gaze, a "glimpse" glance at the sublime moment of the action of the gesture, and has immobilized it in a disturbing way. It moves in its stillness.

It is the right image for Ralph Bernabei's paintings, which are abstract and gestural and generate forms that we want to interpret. It is a mistake. They must be looked at intuitively and immediately, an interval between the work and the viewer.

Ralph Bernabei captures this fragment of time and fixes it. What is fleeting ceases to exist, only a visual impression remains that lasts for just a moment and the record permeates the paper. An aroma, a taste, a person passing by or the perception of a light is a momentary "aura" that space and things have left in us. The works appear, they surprise us, we have no rational understanding of them, they disappear and we keep them in our memory like the "Proustian" recollection of time from the taste of a muffin soaked in tea.

Perhaps, without intending to, Ralph Bernabei has created in us the need for a critical look based on the moment; an essay on the aesthetic experience based on the idea of 'Glimpse' could be considered.

Chain of moments

Versatility allows Ralph Bernabei to work with the same speed in both painting and sculpture. A kind of bond is created between them, like links in a chain blackened by smoke. Sculpture addresses space, highlights it. RB's concern for working simultaneously on all dimensions of space is clear, going from plane to volume while maintaining the connection between all. In some cases, free forms appear, detached from the wall that has engendered them. Sculptures on the wall, stripped of everything, naked, essential. Wooden structures, which he occasionally places on top as immutable presences. He is fascinated by working in all dimensions of space. The plane of the wall, the floor, the ceiling of a room, everything interests him.

Bernabei's sculptural form obeys the contrast of an essentialist art, of formal and spiritualized purity. Bernabei's sculptural form obeys the contrast of an essentialist art, of formal and spiritualized purity, which seeks the same force found in the spontaneity of nature. From here arises the Gesture in his Painting. Another dialogue appears on the same principle, this time between gesture, scribble and structure. His pictorial works, made of calligraphic, gestural strokes, emerge from the plane of the wall. They are picto-sculptural works that protrude from the wall or, sometimes, are found freestanding, resting on the ground. These informal gestures contrast with the structures of the invisible geometry that sustains them. Between the expressive, intuitive, vital stain and order. The wall seems the inevitable fate of a two-dimensional work, but these paintings, made with pictorial, calligraphic, gestural strokes, want to leave the plane of the wall and allow them to physically approach the viewer.

Bernabei's artistic philosophy found in this reunion ceremony speaks to us of the importance of the values of unity which, for him, is very important. All his works have in common the idea of Between , Connection , Union . The clearest image of this is the links of a chain. In his works there is a permanent desire: to achieve a humanist art that allows rapprochement and connection. Art unites.