El Nuevo Herald - Sunday, August 18, 1999

JORGE POSADA OR

THE FIGURE AS LANGUAGE
by Armando Alvarez Bravo
El Nuevo Herald's Art Critic

For the Colombian artist Jorge Posada that property of the body is what feeds his art, as can be seen in the show of his series titled "The Missing and The Awakening," in the ongoing exhibit at the Colombian Consulate in Miami in Coral Gables, which is complemented by pieces from the Farewell collection.

In these collections, in which the figure goes from its most abstract representation, as in The Missing, to a realism loaded with immediacy, as in The Awakening, in order to integrate both perspectives in a third series, The Farewell, Posada reveals that he wants - through the use of light, shade, form, texture, movement, color, and line - to claim his right to individual expression, which he feels has been compromised by the mechanisms of concealment that modern society generates. In this way he uses bodies that do not have identity and shows the lack thereof by way of his semi-abstract materialization and he exposes the splitting of the individual and the violence surrounding him by a figuration that is very rooted in draughtmanship, which exalts academic realism. These two perspectives place the person at the extremes of his spectrum of availability: a profit that is difficult to consolidate on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, the artist, who seeks to liberate the creature by means of its representation, is aware of the difficulty, from an existential point of view, which attempts to obtain that maximum. This forces him to recognize the strength of the circumstances that limit mankind in a fusion that blurs his models, but that does not keep them away from their aspirations. Posada moves with identical ease in these three paths. And the reason is obvious: the intensity with which he creates them.