RAFAEL FERRER b. 1933
The exotic, mysterious world of the tropics is explored in Rafael Ferrer's El Sol
Asombra, a striking painting of an isolated landscape dominated by brilliant light and
vivid color. Ferrer's highly individual vision comes from his sharp powers of observation
and his reservoir of poignant personal experiences, memories, and desires; raw materials
which he transforms into a distinctively expressive painting style rich with visual
detail.
A master of compelling, although ambiguous, narrative, Ferrer first came to prominence
with his inventive, loosely assembled temporary installations, associated with Process
Art. These messy environments, organized without hierarchy, were created from such diverse
materials as grease, leaves, hay, ice, neon, and corrugated metal. In the late 1970s, the
artist turned to easel painting, concentrating on expressively rendered figures. Since the
early 1980s, he has painted Caribbean subjects. Born in Puerto Rico in 1933, Ferrer
traveled widely before choosing to return to the Caribbean. Now he splits his time equally
between Philadelphia and the Dominican Republic, the inspiration for El Sol Asombra.
In El Sol Asombra, nature and light as well as perceptive understanding of
place are the essential subjects of a flamboyant composition depicting several houses
located in an overgrown landscape. A centrally positioned but architecturally simple
dwelling, brilliantly colored in yellow, pink, and blue, dominates the scene. The
relationship between this large structure and the location and scale of the flaking houses
creates a slightly unsettling perception of space. Adding to the feeling of isolation is
the dense arrangement of lush green plants and irregularly
shaped foliage surrounding the domestic buildings. Despite the depiction of illusionary
space, Ferrer maintains a surface flatness through simplified and flattened shapes and
tonally even colors. Overall, the sensation of heat and moisture permeates the work.
Ferrer has subtly altered the quiet mood and feeling of seclusion of the tropical
environment by including two small figures, one seated and the other standing behind an
open window. Placed in dark shadow, their presence, although barely visible, adds to the
enigma of the scene. One is uncertain about the role of these figures. Are they the
observers or has their privacy been invaded?
Ferrer's deft use of light overwhelms and energizes the complex compositional layout and
the puzzling narrative of this painting. The intensity of the sun's rays pouring through
the trees is balanced by a startling array of bold shadow patterns. Wonderfully
independent, abstract, dark, flat planes rhythmically cover much of the foreground.
Additionally, wandering, somewhat figure-like shadows dance over the buildings, suggesting
the fleeting presence of light. The work's title translates roughly as "the sun with
shade or shadow," which embodies a play on words that often characterizes Ferrer's
titles. Descriptively accurate, it refers to a duality in the work in a number of ways. El
Sol Asombra is at once light and dark, isolated and accessible, open and
impenetrable, a southern subject, but in a northern painting style.
For some time, landscape has been a key element in Ferrer's painting. In a 1984 interview,
he explained his fascination with this subject matter. "The landscapes come from
geographic locales that have the most intensely erotic connotation from my childhood:
going to deserted beaches when I was little; going through palm groves which are
endless.... There is this combination of what you see and what you imagine. I include the
kinds of houses you find in the tropics Travel throughout the Caribbean and Mexico has
significantly enriched his repository of visual imagery. These lush, real and remembered
environments provide compatible forms for Ferrer's distinctive brushstrokes: thick, fluid,
and forceful.
Despite the vividness of his memories, the artist relies on photographs to construct his
tropical vistas. "I now have tons of photographs: palm groves, beaches with the ocean
in different conditions, cloud formations, banana groves, all these things." His goal
is a dense visual richness.
Ferrer's expressive, straightforwardly representational style appears primitive-he is
primarily self-taught-but is rooted in and enriched by the artist's knowledge of the
history of painting. The faux-naive paintings of Paul Gauguin and Henri-Julien Rousseau
come immediately to mind as sources of inspiration. In the end, however, there is a
compelling energy, unleashed by the lively paint surface in Ferrer's work. By stressing
simplified forms, rhythmic flattened surfaces, and the supremacy of light and atmosphere,
Ferrer allows his lavish pictorial surfaces and colors to simmer with emotion.
TOM E. HINSON