Untitled [Sin título], 1986
From the beginning of the 1980s onwards, the colour proliferates, becomes more varied, either by the use of ink, pastels or gouache, whilst the areas or zones in which the forms fragment the surface unravel, flow, invade each other. Esteban Vicente’s basic tones are maintained although they are enriched by others thus becoming a veritable symphony of colour.
For Esteban Vicente expression was always a balance between form, matter and colour. The spots of colour, the brushstrokes and the occasional forms flow in a very natural manner from the order that is provided by the harmonic relationship between the different sections of the painting. This is the reason for his comment: “Art is based on order”.
In this case Vicente executed a representation of colour by capturing its infinite shades and condensing the expressivity into a combination of colour planes, creating a chromatic and geometric abstraction using rectangular and square fields of colour, in which the blue, red, green and yellow appear in a state of fusion. In addition, he combined the sharp-edged with the diffused borders, suggesting simultaneously the tactile and the visual. With these he constructed a composition taking into account the relationship between its dimensions, colour and position on the surface of the canvas. Therefore, a constructed expressivity is created, sustained on the principles of order and proportion because, for him, “what is important is the structure and what things call each other”.
The fragmentation of the colour planes is reduced and simplified in order to concentrate on the luminous effects of the surfaces, much in the same manner of other expressionist painters such as Hans Hoffman. For Esteban, it was only by conceiving colour as light that a painting could be expressed as light. It is the representation of an abstraction: colour and light in their primary state.