The sense of the gallop
Here I am
Imagine a thick forest and a green oval table which, from the right perspective, resembles a mystical mandorla. To get there, you have to go through one of the two segmental arches that pierce the ivy-covered stone wall at the entrance: one of the arches has a beautiful white wrought-iron gate, while the other leads to the path, marked out by a row of trees that border a field with horses. At the end of this path, on one side, there is a gazebo or open hut; on the other side is the greenhouse orchard, the house, and, in the middle, the studio. This peaceful and charming setting makes up a substantial part of Breza's artistic and vital imaginary. She paints the places she inhabits - places which, at the same time, inhabit her.
Sense is the ability to perceive external or internal stimuli. The word "gallop", etymologically, comes from a compound term that means "to run well".
"Paint knows more about me than I do"
Breza Cecchini has a deep connection with nature and its cycles, which she combines with introspection to assemble dreams, nightmares, memories, experiences and affective realities. These images cannot be explained in purely objective or rational terms; instead, they appear as flashes or visions projected from the innermost recesses of being, lending themselves to meaning and dialectical play, since artistic exercise always pursues the unknown. "I know that I saw - because I do not understand", as Clarice Lispector put it (The Passion According to G.H.).
Thus, paint flows as an outlet at the service of intuition and viscerality in order to express that which cannot be said any other way, or perhaps to confirm the sheer unintelligibility of existence. This is the way to transcribe the invisible into symbols and impressions and use them to fathom the depths of the soul.
Images befall. They are like revelations or "switches that can awaken hidden emotions," as Susana Blas defined them in her Epistolario (antes secreto) con la pintora Breza Cecchini.
Art is a way of being in the world. Painting is a means to question oneself about life, to confront one's own contradictions and reach another state of consciousness.
"I am the urge to paint and dream"
Paintings crowd the studio, where all possible formats coexist. They call out to each other, in harmony and in dialogue with one another, regardless of the techniques used. They form a single landscape with the brushes, paint tubes, jars, vases, paper, sketchpads and other marvellous objects piled up in the available space. There is also a mirror that registers our presence as part of such a unique microcosm. Breza defies the white cube logics (even though from the outside, her studio - paradoxically - suggests this very form). Her creations, ever enigmatic, breathe magic and rebellion.
She composes the notes of an intimate diary that registers everything that goes on around her, from the mundane and familiar to the oniric and surreal. We see myths and archetypes, fairy-tale creatures that revive our childhood imaginaries. Similarly, we discover threads of poetry, oral or written stories and echoes of other chapters in Art History. Each stroke is like a heartbeat that can see, so there is no possible illustration. Breza's painting are honest and simple; they teem with nuances and subtleties that are gradually revealed through the act of looking, with no artifice or misdirection.
The iconography is repeated as an attempt at rehearsal (répéter in French also means "to rehearse"), with a certain ritual dimension: as it is meant to release the symbols hidden within the images. It is also an attempt to "chase beauty into its lair" - as Chantal Maillard notes, quoting Arundhati Roy - even if, at times, there are glimpses of horror. Breza's work is "a painting that howls, that brings what's buried to the surface and faces the abyss," as Natalia Alonso Arduengo has so aptly pointed out (Las cartas se echan solas, exhibition catalogue for Mi sombra de cuatro patas, Sala Robayera, Miengo, Cantabria). Nevertheless, even among shadows, certain signs shine out and interpellate us.
"I paint where I am and who I am, but what I do ends up affecting me"
Breza envisions Amazons who ride like acrobats or are about to break into gallop and even take flight. Women with outstretched arms and half-open legs, refusing to assume the demure pose assigned to their gender. They wait no longer. Their attitude, flexible and expansive, represents an openness to being, a mastery of the body and proof that they know they stand on their ground. The myth of Nike, from the origins of our culture, resonates in them. They may even be allegories of Victory.
They are almost always in the company of other species, most frequently horses and wolves, which are presented as symbolic incarnations of a kind of double, an as-yet-unrevealed signifier or signified. Beyond the archetypical roles assigned by the traditional narratives, these animals, in their mysterious ambivalence, act as catalysts. The horses, strongly linked to Breza's family-based culture, represent the house, the known environment and perhaps also the freer, untamed part of our being; the horse is the form that talks. Wolves, meanwhile, beckon the realm of shadows, embodying the fragile side, fears and anxieties, as well as certain obstacles. Nevertheless, they are not a threat: they often become allies that offer care and protection.
All these creatures inhabit a humid, green landscape, where cloudy skies loom in blue-grey tones. Sometimes, this landscape is submerged in a dense fog that, like a veil, accentuates its spiritual dimension. The brushstroke, vibrant and nimble, transcribes the infinite nuances of Breza's imaginary into colour. The gesture, profoundly expressive, plays with the different densities of the material: it goes from figuration to abstraction, from solid to liquid, and from fluid to atmospheric, all while the light gradually reveals intensities. From time to time, the drawing breaks loose from the colour. On other occasions, Breza adds streaks of gold or silver leaf, in a nod to the stars or to other states of the soul. All of the artistic media used by the artist, whether paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures or textiles, help her piece together a beautiful metaphysics - somewhat like the staging of a poetic thought, comparable to the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard or the verses of Juan de la Cruz - with which she is able to reinstate the power of the imagination in a permanent Here I am/This is me.
"Life lives me"
Breza radiates intelligence. She is aware that the image perversely captures things that perhaps should not be there - signs or hints that take and then lose their shape - so she lets them go. In short, each composition is a live space that contains the layers of a story that started to become and eventually is offered as an invitation to the senses that appeals to our sensibility, our memory and our imagining self, all in a delicious exercise of interpretation. Breza knows, just like Clarice Lispector, that freedom is a secret: "Life is me, and I don't understand what I'm saying. And, therefore, I adore...".
Marta Mantecón
Author's note: the quotes in bold are by Breza Cecchini.