Castilla
Landscapes, villages and people through the eyes of the Generation of '98
There are landscapes that are not merely contemplated: they are remembered. There are objects that, though forgotten by time, keep the memory of those who built them, used them and lived alongside them. Castilla is one of those places where landscape, vernacular architecture and everyday life belong to a single story.
The work of David Moreno (Plasencia, 1982) is born precisely of that gaze. His paintings and assemblages do not set out simply to depict a territory, but to reveal the history hidden in a weathered plank, an old door, a roof, a tool or a fragment of wall rescued from oblivion. Humble materials which, transformed by the artist's sensibility, recover their voice and find new meaning.
An architect by training, David Moreno understands each work as a process of construction. He carefully selects materials found in the rural environment — wood, cloth, cardboard and objects marked by the passing of time — and integrates them into compositions where paint and matter converse inseparably. Traces of use, cracks, textures and imperfections are no longer hidden; they become an essential part of the work, because they are what speak of the memory of the land.
The works in this exhibition, bathed in a serene light and an earthy palette, propose an unhurried look at Castilla. Alongside wide horizons appear century-old doors, ruined façades, flaking walls, windows and other fragments of vernacular architecture which, isolated from their context, acquire a surprising plastic dimension. As if the artist were turning our eyes towards what usually goes unnoticed, every grain of the wood, every crack and every texture becomes the protagonist of the work. They are traces of time that speak of those who inhabited these places, and they turn the everyday into an experience of contemplation.
That way of looking connects with the sensibility of the writers of the Generation of '98, who found in Castilla a place from which to reflect on identity, memory and the human condition. Unamuno, Azorín, Machado, Baroja and Ganivet discovered in its villages, roads and fields an essential beauty, far from the grandiose and deeply bound to daily life. Their words accompany this journey because they converse with David Moreno's works from the same emotion: that of someone who knows how to find the extraordinary in what seems simple.
Perhaps that is also the invitation of this exhibition: to stop, to look calmly, and to discover that true heritage lives not only in great monuments, but also in landscapes, villages, objects and the traces time has left upon them.
Because every reclaimed plank, every texture and every landscape reminds us that the memory of a people can also be told through art.
«I have a deep fondness for rooftops. I love old rooftops, silent rooftops…»
Azorín
- Organised by
- A.C. Infante don Juan Manuel
- Curated by
- Antonio Barriga Sierra
- With the support of
- Ayuntamiento de Belmonte