Once again, Jose Apaza exhibits in León. This time twenty watercolors. All of them superb! Each demonstrates his absolute command of the technique and a sensibility that surfaces naturally, without pretentiousness.
He is of those artist whose originality was not acquired through snobbery or extravagance that abound in this field as the only recourse.
One must keep in mind that the subjects presented by Apaza are only an excuse to involve the viewer just as he himself has become involved in an emotional state paralleling that of meditation. But for that purpose it would be the same an elderly woman sitting on a wrought iron bench as any other theme that in its moment would provoke the same spiritual sublimation.
Apaza rescues that emotional state in which melancholy is transformed into serenity, with silence as its constant, silence that does not mean absence of life, stillness that by no means lacks vitality, because his characters are real, alive and throbbing In the eloquence of hands and faces full of inner life. Those are suffering working characters with which Apaza is moved, committed to and has no other choice but to love them because he identifies with them.
The visual resources he boasts are of great singularity. As proof we have the monochrome atmosphere with which he surrounds his themes in a centripetal manner, guiding the viewer’s eyes as if through a visual funnel towards the central character or central theme with which he suddenly breaks the chromatic monotony applying touches of color always in harmony with the rest of the work. His compositions although organized are in no way conventionality. Apaza moves on a plane of apparent subtleties and spontaneities which are the product of an analysis in which the weight of the elements seems to have been calculated with precision instruments. At times, the organization of these elements achieves a mathematical modulation due to the accuracy with which he fits the planes he has put into play.
And what could be said of his technical assets? He has them all: those of the traditional watercolor technique and those of his own invention because we can not overlook the size of his works. Watercolors of such dimensions constitute a real feat because as everyone knows, this medium allows neither error nor correction. CONGRATULATIONS JOSÉ.
ENRIQUE BESSONART