2013

José Luis Martinez Meseguer, commissioner, critic and cultural manager, among others of its many facets, has made the commissioning of the two parallel exhibitions, promoted by the Fuentes Vicente Foundation, in the Casino of Orihuela, Alicante (Amnios) and in the Palacete Of the Silk, Murcia (21st Century Retablos), and that have taken place in the months of December of 2013 to January of 2014.
A speech for a curator:
Alicante, December 2013
Estartús is 64 years old and has 45 years of artistic practice. With each new series opens and closes a style, none is similar to the previous one.
It moves comfortable in large formats and in abstraction, insofar as it eliminates figuration or realistic representation. The surface of the painting is an all over or unlimited open field, except for its own dimensions. It does not establish any hierarchy. Its center of interest is the gesture or movement of painting. There is no common style in abstraction, if not so many as practitioners, except in the rejection of drawing and control, of the traditional conception of painting and of representing reality in an objective way.
As for language, it creates open works that the viewer reads freely. The artist makes signs that give a sense, we could even speak of calligraphic abstraction, but also alternates and uses the Latin alphabet. Performs an automatic, direct subconscious writing action. The artist manufactures signs to which he gives a universal proper sense of the interiority and deconstruction of the idea, private which can not be understood by any other than by himself.
Among the characteristics of his painting, we find: balance in the composition; Is a material painting, with an expressive use of matter, to which it applies destruction (perforations, cuts, scratches) and automatism; The expression of the artist’s pictorial emotion (individual, immediate); spontaneity. It works from the absence of preconceived ideas, the experience of the fact gives rise to the idea. The work is the place and the privileged moment in which the artist discovers
RETELS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Retablo is a set or collection of painted or carved figures, which represent in series a history or event (DRAE).
Series produced in 2010 and composed of 40 works in large format, on wooden supports, salvaged from construction, in which mechanical and pictorial intervention takes place. A trend, that of recycling, which adheres to one of the lines of contemporary art, to contemporary artistic practice. To point out a vital concomitance in this series, because Estartús is, besides a degree in Fine Arts, architect. And they have a lot of construction, of constructive, of architectural this series.
Retablos directed towards the spiritual slope of our being. The stories that are narrated belong to our century and are secular, not going to be destined to be placed behind the altar. They tell us face to face, with a lot of closeness, elements that least concern the author.
Use in this series the technique of action painting. Pictorial technique – and name of the pictorial movement that uses it – which through color and matter tries to express sensations such as energy, speed, movement. From the technical point of view, it consists in splashing the surface of the canvas with paint spontaneously and energetically, that is to say without preset scheme, becoming a space of action and not in the mere reproduction of reality.
From the Greek amnion (άμνίον), membrane, is a term of the zoology and the biology: Closed sack that surrounds and protects the embryo of the reptiles, birds and mammals and that forms like extraembrionaria membrane, filled with an aqueous liquid: the liquid Amniotic or amniotic water (DRAE).
Pictorial series of 2013 composed of 70 pieces, 40 small and medium format, on canvas, 30 on parchment.

The most recent works of ESTARTUS and to confirm how this artist remains strong, with a clean and intense ability to penetrate the dark forest that is human thought when it goes beyond the coexistence formulas created out of the need that we have to live with one another.
The sub conscience formulas created out of the need that we have to live with one another. The subconscious becomes a palpable reality through his work, however, this does not mean that we must believe that it is a release from problems in order to end up conforming to established rules. It is not, to put it bluntly, like the couch of the psychiatrists, but rather an entire artistic reflection about what is essential in life and about thinking in a order to move toward individual and, especially, collective authenticity.
ESTARTUS is a true philosopher of painting. His aesthetics and the beauty in his painting are never gratuitous, which does not mean that everything is calculated ahead of time. He practices spontaneity, but beforehand he has reflected on feelings, passions and human desires to find the intimate meaning of it all.The effort focused on synthesis has been considerable, and henceforth, this painting is finely woven in the concept and with the precise diction that makes it possible to reach others in a convincing way. And even though it is a perfectly clear that he does not intend to act as a teacher, he does teach us to explore within trough the sincerity he exhibits.
There is the courage of the search and the generosity of explaining findings in the painting of ESTARTUS. He bases his work on his knowledge and he does not improvise, but he does not limit what he hands in nor he sparingly give what he tells, but instead he fully devotes himself to each work.

Nonetheless, he does not go now in one direction and the in another, which could happen to someone soho is not familiar with a place. Instead, he is systematic, and from his familiar work as a whole, it is possible to deduce a new and attractive conceptión of what the world we live in should be like.

En cada muestra relativa a la obra más reciente de Estartús se advierte como este artista mantiene fuerte, limpia e intensa la capacidad de penetrar en la selva más oscura que es el pensamiento humano cuando se va más allá de las formulas de convivencia nacidas de la necesidad que tenemos de convivir unos con otros. El subconsciente se hace realidad palpable a través de su obra, sin que por ello hayamos de creer que se trata de una liberación de problemas para así llegar a conformarse con lo que está establecido. No es, dicho sea con expresión llana, como el diván del trópico sobre lo esencial del vivir y  del pensar para avanzar hacia la autenticidad individual y, en especial, colectiva. ESTARTÚS, es un verdadero filosofo de la pintura. Su estética-hay belleza en sus obras- nunca resulta gratuita, lo cual no quiere decir que todo esté calculado de antemano. Practica la espontaneidad, pero antes ha reflexionado sobre los sentimientos, las pasiones y las voluntades humanas para hallar el íntimo sentido de todo ello. El esfuerzo de síntesis ha sido grande y de ahí  que la pintura le quede bien trabajada y con la dicción precisa para llegar a los demás de un modo convincente y aunque es perfectamente advertible que no pretende pedagogía, sí que nos enseña a explorar lo propio a través de sus sinceridad expositiva.
En la pintura de ESTARTÚS hay la valentía de búsqueda y la generosidad de contar los hallazgos. Parte de sus conocimientos y no improvisa, pero no se limita en la entrega ni dosifica lo que cuenta sino que se entrega plenamente en cada obra. Sin embargo, no se dispersa ahora en un sentido y después en otro, como le podría ocurrir al que no conoce un lugar. Al contrario: es sistemático y del conjunto de su obra puede deducirse una nueva y atractiva concepción de lo que debería ser el mudo en el  cual vivimos.
Josep Mª Cadena, periodista de la Asociación Internacional de Críticos de Arte, Creu de Sant Jordi y Medalla de Oro de la Generalitat de Catalunya por su labor como crítico de arte.

The artist Estartús will present his latest pictorial series Amnios-2013 in the Pop Up Art Gallery in Barcelona, from the 19th of September.  The series will feature thirty five paintings – paint and resin on canvas- that highlight the return to informalism of this chameleonic painter. Thirty five medium size format paintings that will highlight his creative mastery regarding color and gesture.
         After his  Reliefs Commited series in 2011-almost grey monochrome -, Jaume Mestres Estartús (Barcelona, 1949) – Estartús by his artistic name-, has resumed the informalist root of Catalan artistic tradition and of his own work, especially with the series called Vision Iron-2009,  carried out mainly on metal plates. The artist wanted to insist on the automatic gesture, and the result is a gestural Expressionism focused on the concept of the Amnios.We should remember that Jaume Estartús is a gynecologist a as his source of pictural inspiration the inner membrane that contains the amniotic liquid and the fetus as his source of inspiration . The corión is the outer membrane, it contains the amnios and it´s part of the placenta.
        I do not believe Estartús meant to make an organic reproduction of the amnios, not at all. An artist brings together an idea, a concept, to investigate and to look into a series and in this case, he placed his look into the Amnios as the starting point– this is especially noticeable in the first paintings of the series- and he took it as the excuse to start his chromatic pictorial work and  gesture on canvas.        He is not the first painter to resort to our body organic elements as his driving engine to start his painting production(we should remember that Luis Gordillo´s paintings have sometimes been understood as an expanded development of our DNA chain). The beauty, opportunity and rightness of a series will be appreciated and valued by its plastic and pictorial results.
Amnios 1

Maternal womb
         The concept of Amnios has to do with the protection in the primary nucleus and in the maternal womb; basically it has a vital origen.  Estartús has said in several occasions that it was the love for the mother what actually made him to become interested in gynecology.  The mother is always the amnios, the membrane that protects and offers refuge. According to the artists personal blog “The amnios is the origen of human life that with time produces that constant concern: our ephimeral existence”         From the plastic arts point of view Amnios-2013 reflects the general return of the artista to the informalism from other instances;   the taste for the gesture, which hihglights his personal pictorial way; his reencounter with his own automatic language; his delight to apply pigments and resins on canvas; summarizing it means Estartus´ love for paint. Art comes from nature and inner reflection.
        He has left behind, at least for the time being, the previous series about social compromising issues to get into the maternal womb of the Amnios-2013 where the mysterious inner female world is transported into the artist dimension. Art captures the world in a way that can not be translated in logic cartesian terms, it has its own sintaxis because it deals with different issues.  The artist reveals with his latest work his wish to go sailing between different standards through reflection knowledge and freedom of stroke.
Chromatic bodies and free filaments         The artista does not paint, nor draw amnios in a naturalist styl. However amnios are present in a subtle, different way, with transmuted gesture and color.         Benoit Mandelbrot says it with these poetic words: Les nuages ne sont pas des spheres,/ les montagnes ne sont pas des cônes,/ les côtes ne sont pas de cercles,/ l´ecorce nést pas lisse et/ l´eclaire ne dessine pas une ligne droite.
Los Amnios-2013 of this series are and are not amnios; they are more than amnios. They are paintings basically made from the  artist´s automatism.  They start from a concept and a mental reflection with egg shapes, almost  embryonic with some organic mention (see numbers 1 and 2, for example), the series opens and sponges shapes that sometimes are subdivided in a kind of dialogue and chromatic tension, (numbers 6, 7 and 19). Life on the go, pictorial process without possibility to continue.  
The artist often creates some spatiality or transparency between the bodies (number 20), building visually perceptible middle spaces in the painting.  Shapes, pictorial bodies, they relate to each other in a powerful or dynamic way on the canvas..
The gestural stroke sometimes becomes a sort of filament as if it were a body of laces or quick arabesque sui generis, that mixes rhythms and colors with freedom and grace (numbers 16, 17, 21, 33 y 34).
The relationship between the colors of the different works is spread with predominant reds and blacks; powerful indigos and blacks (paintings 26 y 27) or soils and ochres that get close to nature.
Pigments are applied and spread with freedom until the painter ¨finds¨ –to say about Picasso- what he wishes for and finishes the painter completes his intervention with the dripping and spattering of the pigment.

A dismantling with each series
Estartús as Gerhard Richter –the great German painter of the XXI      Century- does not want to become a prisoner of a style and that´s why he opens a closes an interval with each series. This is the best way not to manufacture paintings but to create works that respond in each occasion to a renewed investigation.  The author dismantles each series with accuracy and reborns again as the phoenix.  His art collectors are in luck and will be able to enjoy his Works from different stages, and to freely choose their favorite ones.   
There are art collectors interested in works from different stages of a single artist. Artists such as Estartús are ideal for this purpose. The C.A.C of Málaga presented a private collection owned by German collectors focused solely in Richter. If you follow Estartús artistic career you will be surprised in each exhibition by a new plastic and conceptual concept. Each exhibition meant a step forward in his career. A collection of Estartus Works through his career is an epifany of artistic findings.