Press
JAUME BERTRANPETIT
Information Panel
15/07/2023
Information Panel
15/07/2023
OM MANI PADME HUM
Prayers billowing in the wind at the high altitudes of the Himalayas seek to scatter the wishes of those who pray and make everything desired and written in them come true. The wind needs to caress, squeeze, and ripple the prayers in order for them to set into motion. They must transform to come into being, and they cannot unless they move: it is the act of becoming that makes them be. This is the knowledge they impart to us: without movement they do not fully become reality. It is the wave of the wind that gives fullness to their essence as prayers. They are because they change. Their being is in the passage of time.
Long discussions have taken place since the ancient Greeks about being and becoming. Now we know that we are because we become, because we change. The passage of time always involves change: physical change, biological change, psychological change, social change. And we try to understand the world by grasping it over time, by observing change; and this is how our thoughts, swaying in the contemplation of movement, can achieve a peace, a stillness, a tranquility, a placidity that various religions have employed to help us achieve the serenity that we often long for. This is the role of Buddhist mantras, whether recited or written on banners in the wind. And this is the path that Kima Guitart takes us on in the walk through her exhibit, "It's raining prayers" (Plouen pregàries).
Her painted silks, outside the rigidity of racks or frames, invite us to perceive beauty as part of the placidity that the observation of movement allows us. Each one of the painted images, without aspiring to be a figurative representation, forces our brains to provide content, to look for references, to build stories. Side by side, independent of one another yet altogether, the images convey those movements that evoke serenity, a feeling that historically art linked with beauty, a property we still associate with art. Through art, spirituality, and beauty in the wind, Kima invites us to feel that in change there is essence, the fullness of being.
Jaume Bertranpetit: Emeritus Professor
Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC)
Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
JOANA BONET
Interview
LA VANGUARDIA
09/08/2020
Interview
LA VANGUARDIA
09/08/2020
KIMA GUITART, PASSION FOR SILK: "SOCIETY DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO RECOGNIZE WHAT AN ARTISAN IS"
«It is not a coincidence that the etymology of the word “text” stems from the Latin word, textum ("fabric"), an analogy that compares the construction of a story to that of a fabric that is thought out, sewn, printed. Telling stories through threads, threading the needle and piercing the loom over and over again as a way of being in the world, may have been the beginning of oral storytelling, supported by the weavings of fabrics that were forming a whole, just like words.
Irene Vallejo, author of the highly recommended El Infinito en un Junco (Siruela), maintains the hypothesis that the first storytellers were women who sewed. And although she considers it an erased history, impossible to trace, she points out the number of words shared between sewing and narrating that highlights the connection, for example: the nub of a story, the weaving of a plot, the thread of a narrative or the embroidery of a discourse.
When Kima Guitart (Esparraguera, 1947) paints silks, she converses: She opens a thread and brings together traditions, civilisations, techniques and experiences in an abundance of colours. She is a textile artist, although she has never really known which collective represents her. "It looks as if the work is made with threads, it is considered craft; if it is on paper, it is considered art", declared Anni Albers, one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century. A pioneer of textile art - she coined the expression pictorial weaving, was the head of the weaving department at the Bauhaus.
Kima Guitart grew up in a dressmaker's workshop where her mother was the boss. "Something exceptional happened: my father had a theatre group, and the actors often read aloud while the girls sewed, it was magnificent. When summer came, instead of the workshop, we would go out into the garden to sew and listen to the rehearsals." Kima started painting on silk in the early 1970s because she was fascinated by a scarf her brother bought in Paris and gave to their mother. That was the beginning, then came the quest for excellence. After studying at the Escola d'Arts i Oficis and enamelling at the workshop of Montserrat Xicola, she won a scholarship to study goldsmithing and enamelling at the Istituto d'Arte di Porta Romana in Florence.
The quest for beauty permeated her thirst for knowledge, and from the cradle of the Renaissance she moved to Paris, where the scarf she still dreamed of came from. There, TRYING out a bohemian life, she began to study Japanese and Chinese painting techniques with Madame Litza Bain, an Algerian pied noir who had mastered the art of silk painting. In the 1920s, as a result of the French art community's interest in chinoiserie, this discipline had been introduced at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Madame Bain was patient, mysterious. Guitart learned the art of slowness, silence, the breathing of the canvas, the relationship with light and shadows.
Her name immediately spread as a rara avis in the fashion world. Her years in New York and her time at the Fashion Institute of Technology reinforced the rareness of her unique and timeless creations. She devoted herself with zeal to mural fabrics, as well as clothing: kaftans, shirts, suits, and delicate scarves that remain a sublime expression of art-wear, an art to be worn and moved on the body. Quima also recovered the K that she had played with as a teenager, despite a certain embarrassment at the attempt against grammar. "It's a powerful and graphic letter, and also, this way my name is pronounced the same in all languages".
Next September she will exhibit two pieces at the National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, China. She has been selected to participate in the 2020 Global Qipao Invitational Exhibition, as part of the Hangzhou Qipao Festival. The qipao, a dress with a mao collar, tight-fitting and with two side slits, is considered to be the most representative dress of Chinese women, who today wish to adapt it to the 21st century. The Spanish curator, Lala de Dios, has also chosen the textile artists Carmen Pastor, Svetlana Gromik and Susana Arce to be featured in the exhibition. "This is a very important opportunity and recognition for me, it means a lot, because the silk painting technique I have been using for years has its origins in China," says Kima Guitart.
It seems contradictory that a traditional piece, such as the qipao, should be globalised through art. What have you contributed?
The qipao is a beautiful, tight-fitting, high-necked, double-sided cut-out piece of clothing. It has its origins in the traditional Chinese costume. The modern version was developed in Shanghai in the early 20th century. I discovered it as an exceptional piece of clothing in the film In the mood for love by Wong Kar-Wai, where the protagonist appears in every scene with a new and wonderful qipao. When I was asked to participate in the Festival, I thought of doing something very crazy and imaginative, but in the end, the respect that I feel, as the daughter of a dressmaker, for such a well-resolved piece in which there is no need to invent anything, won out. So I limited myself to absolutely respecting the form (the pattern) and just developing my creativity in the painting.
Can you describe your pieces?
My two qipaos are unique pieces painted on natural silk shantung. The piece The lovely Flowers is inspired by two gardens, the one from my childhood and the one in the house where I currently live in Barcelona. Hills and Rivers is based on shantung with gold leaf and an overlapping layer of organza also painted with the intention of highlighting the gold leaf applied on the shantung by veiling it.
What marked your career?
My dream when I was young was to be a dancer. But at that time and in a village in the Baix Llobregat, it was an unrealistic dream. I grew up surrounded by fabrics, buttons, trimmings and patterns. My mother, María Comaposada, was an enormously creative woman, with an impressive capacity for work and a very open mind. From her, I learnt a love of fabrics, colours, shapes and the value of a job well done. She always encouraged me. Curiously, she did not teach me pattern making, I had to learn it many years later at the FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) in New York, where I prepared my first two fashion shows: Fashion Week in Berlin and Pasarela Gaudí in Barcelona.
Are textile artists understood in Spain? They always seem to be one step below visual artists. Why is that?
The international movement known as textile art or fabric art in our country is practically unknown. In September last year, the VII Biennial WTA (World Textile Art) was held in Madrid, curated by María Ortega, where I participated as a guest artist. It was a very important event on an international level, with the participation of renowned artists from all over the world and with a very high level of quality, in my opinion. Well, this event, which if it had been about painting or sculpture would have been on the front pages of all the newspapers, went almost unnoticed! Why? Well, probably because the collective imagination still associates fabrics, embroidery and weaving with women's things. And also because, in fact, most of the participating artists were women.
You are a master of the Chinese and Japanese brush, how have your techniques evolved?
Thank you for calling me a master, although, I am a bit embarrassed because I have never been a teacher. I started out using gutta-percha to achieve closed fields of colour and very flat inks, but little by little I began to feel the need for greater freedom and I incorporated other, more direct techniques, such as wet-on-wet, resist or fading. For some time now I have been mixing them all. The result is perhaps not very academic but it allows me to achieve interesting qualities and textures. My painting is very gestural and I need freedom to be able to dialogue with the silk. It is a quick work, where you can't fix any errors. The inks are transparent and you can't cover them up. You have to start and finish at once, so it is very lively, gestural, with hardly any premeditation. Everything happens at that moment, in front of the canvas.
Is black your favourite ink?
No, although I have used it a lot to emphasise other colours. At the moment I don't feel the need for black so much and I'm leaving more space for white.
The theme of the exhibition is poetry, why did you choose Emily Dickinson?
My first reaction was to look for a Chinese poem to inspire me, but then I thought it was forced, a bit artificial, whereas Emily Dickinson is a poet whose poems I frequent. I've been reading a lot of her poetry for years; when I came across her complete works it was a discovery. It is surprising that her life was almost mystical and that her work was barely published while she was alive. Her verses are apparently simple but they have a depth that makes your hair stand on end. I am very attracted to her short poems about nature, the two I have chosen are beautiful to me.
You refer to the gardens of your childhood as a source of inspiration for the qipaos you have made. What were they like?
The first was at my parents' house in Esparreguera, the house where I was born. It was a long, narrow garden full of fragrant roses, lilies, geraniums and all kinds of flowers and plants that my grandmother looked after. It became my refuge as a dreamy and lonely child. There I spent many hours watching ants, worms and fireflies (yes, there were fireflies in the gardens!) The second garden is the one in the house in Barcelona where I live with my husband and daughter. Not so flowery but very beautiful, I wanted to reproduce that garden that my grandmother used to take care of but where roses didn't bloom in between its walls. Now I have achieved a balance between the beautiful and the hardy. It was my paradise in the recent confinement.
Does art-wear, unique creations interpreted by artists rather than designers, have a future?
It is what I have been doing for years, with success and very loyal customers. When I started at the beginning of the 80s, it was very unknown here, although it always aroused interest. Now, there are many women who appreciate it and are happy to wear a unique piece that does not lose its relevance over the years and that they can combine in many different ways with their basic wardrobe. They are garments in which they feel confident, beautiful and elegant without being overdressed.
Is hand printing a dying trade?
I think that in general today we are experiencing a boom in the recognition of craft trades, but unfortunately I have seen many printmaking workshops close down due to a lack of technological modernisation but also because of the very low prices with which they had to compete. In this professional field in clear decline, I have had many difficulties in finding printmakers who could reproduce my paintings with quality. I remember and thank a couple of them, Carlos Antón from Estampaciones Antón and Jaume from Taller d'Estampats, for their efforts to reproduce my large fields of colour in Lyonnaise printing on silk, something really difficult. At the beginning I only made single painted pieces, then I started to incorporate Lyonnaise printing; then came digital printing and now I have returned to my origins: only single pieces. In recent years I have been working on three-dimensional pieces: textile sculptures.
Why silk instead of canvas? Do you choose different types of silk depending on the technique or the piece?
I have never considered canvas and a good reason for sticking with silk is that I still enjoy painting on it. Silk is a wonderful medium to paint on, there are endless varieties and the results are so rich. I like all types of silk, it can be transparent, opaque, shiny, matt, heavy or light, and the wonderful thing is that in each of its varieties the colour expands in a different way. I discovered a long time ago that the important thing is to dialogue with the materials, never to impose a pre-established criteria.
Do you usually repeat the same patterns: no seams, no backwards or forwards, no age?
Yes, my patterns are very simple, they don't follow trends, neither in shape nor in colour and are therefore timeless and ageless. Fashion is becoming less and less interesting to me as a consumer.
What is your idea of luxury?
My concept of luxury responds to the quality of the material. They can be simple objects and garments, but I look for a “savoir faire” behind them. I am interested in the luxury of craftsmanship.
Which authors inspire you today?
At different times I have been inspired by different authors or movements: Chinese and Japanese silk painting of course, but also the master Miyake or the colours of Matisse or Rothko. At the moment my source of inspiration is the German writer Christa Wolf with her book Cassandra. I am immersed in the world of the Trojan prophetess and her visions. I read this book in the 80s, now it has come back to me, and I find it fascinating. I reinterpret her visions through colours in movement, it is an intense project with pieces of art. It will be the first time I make costumes that are not for wearing, they are flat pieces. At first you think that Cassandra's myth is dominated by intuition, by feeling with the heart, and then you realise that the only one who is thinking wisely during the Trojan War is her, even if they think she is a witch. She is the only sensible one.
Craftsmanship is a rising value. It is considered the new luxury, but what role does society give to craftsmen?
This is a very complex issue because there are many types of craftsmanship. Craftsmanship is a mixed bag with a huge mixture of concepts and objectives. All of us who work with our hands are, to a certain extent, artisans - but there is no question that a street market artisan is not looking for the same thing as a person who presents himself for the Loewe prize, to give an example. And I think that as a consequence of this mixture, society doesn't quite know what is what. It's an uncomfortable situation that I've had to face so many times when I have to explain my work to someone, and I don't know how to define myself: Am I an artist? Am I a craftswoman? Am I a designer? My answer is: I'm a textile artist, but I'm always left wondering if that's a clear enough answer.»
Joana Bonet: writer and journalist
Go to the original interview (Spanish)
CURRO SANCHEZ
Itinerarios 18 - Hilvando encuentros
Museo de Artes Decorativas
Madrid, 2018
Itinerarios 18 - Hilvando encuentros
Museo de Artes Decorativas
Madrid, 2018
THE ART OF CONVERSATION WITH SILK
«Silk is reserved, says Kima. And who will know better than her, after a lifetime of dialogues with silk, coaxing it to tell what it suggests, what it hints, what it whispers, what it hides, what silk may get to say but will keep from those who do not know its genuine language, lacking words, without nouns and adjectives, commas or periods. Silk has its own grammar, its own syntax, its vocabulary, its orthography: it communicates via brush strokes, transparencies, combinations and superimpositions, textures and colours, hues, nuances of light and shadow, and it does so at the pace of silence broken by the soft graze of the brush, the subtle creak of the frame.
Kima masters the language of silk, its inflexions, turns and ways with such dexterity that having talked with silk for so long she managed to break the natural discretion that characterizes it, as she says, and became its confidante, the depository of its knowledge, laments, sorrows, worries, joys and sufferings, even its secrets. Secrets that Kima is careful never to reveal entirely, without going beyond whispering about them, hinting, suggesting, covering them up, in order not to break the mystery that must be kept in every form of expression that wants to reach art’s level. The art of conversing with silk, that Kima offers us in every one of her creations.»
Francisco Sánchez Pérez: doctor in Social Anthropology, Bachelor of Political Science and Sociology, D.E.A in Anthropologie e Histoire and writer
PILAR PARCERISAS
itineraris 17 - Tres miradas des del tèxtil, p. 5
Centre de Documentació i Museu Tèxtil
Catalogo de l’exposició
Terrassa, 2017
itineraris 17 - Tres miradas des del tèxtil, p. 5
Centre de Documentació i Museu Tèxtil
Catalogo de l’exposició
Terrassa, 2017
EMOTIONS OF THE “AURA” OF AN ANCIENT TIME
« “Contemporary creativity, guided by the libertarian spirit that accompanied artistic disciplines in the 20th century, empowered the evolution of textile art moving it towards the codes of painting, sculpture and interdisciplinary installation.
Kima Guitart presents RAINING PRAYERS, a three-dimensional piece of a symbolic nature, inspired by the Buddhist prayer banner, and a set of silk works, SILK MAPS, the originals from the book of the same title that come together with poems by Susanna Rafart.
Just like rain, the strips of white organza silk fall freely and move softly displaying paintbrush strokes of watery colours, golden signs that spread memories, prayers, emotions. A festive mood emanates from the ritual whiteness, recalling memories of her mother, a dressmaker famous for her wedding dresses.
The maps are small paintings, miniatures calling forth immense spaces, projecting towards infinity. Like medieval miniature books, these maps spread symbols, crosses and circles over a deeply spiritual, almost mystical field, close to the spiritual mood of a Rothko. The use of gold foil reaffirms the sacred character the artist wants to confer upon these maps of intimacy.»
Pilar Parcerisas: art critic, curator of exhibitions and screenwriter
ASSUMPTA DANGLA
Datatèxtil, n. 30, pp. 43 f.
Circuit de Museus Tèxtil i de Moda a Catalunya
Terrassa, 2014
Datatèxtil, n. 30, pp. 43 f.
Circuit de Museus Tèxtil i de Moda a Catalunya
Terrassa, 2014
THE UNKOWN SIDE OF KIMA GUITART
« “Watching Kima Guitart paint, we see how she breathes life into silks of the finest quality, how she bathes them in the Mediterranean and how she brings together her experiences of exotic countries and Eastern philosophy to create her beautiful calligraphies. Her brush slides gracefully over the silk as if it were canvas; the aniline dyes are skilfully mixed together on the silk stretched out on a frame where she sketches her compositions of such harmony and energy. Kima, textile artist and designer, welcomes us to her workshop. The sunlight gives life to her hand-dyed silks, which are either unique creations or designs for screen printing. With this vibrant light that gives meaning to her work, her silks possess an aesthetic beauty worthy of a work of art.
Trained at the School of Arts and Crafts in Barcelona, Kima expanded her horizons by studying at design schools in Florence, Paris and New York. Her desire for exploration then took her to Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Ivory Coast in Africa, and to Kyoto in Japan. A pioneer in Spain in the technique of painting on silk, Kima’s work is eclectic and ranges over several creative fields including murals, dresses, and accessories. She also carries out commissions for institutions and firms. Her creations have been displayed at individual and collective exhibitions in art galleries in Spain, Europe, the US and Japan, and she has also exhibited in fashion shows in Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Cambridge and San Francisco.
Kima Guitart’s work reveals a profound understanding of the history of art, and also of the countries she has visited and the cultures she has encountered. At the same time, she has managed to remain faithful to her Mediterranean roots. Her creations reflect a wish to modernize the tradition and also a clear commitment to avant-garde art.»
Assumpte Dangla: historian, curator of textile art
DANIEL GIRALT-MIRACLE
Geometries - Sedes pintades
Artesania Catalunya
Barcelona, 2009
Geometries - Sedes pintades
Artesania Catalunya
Barcelona, 2009
CONSTRUCTING, DECONSTRUCTING AND RECONSTRUCTING
« “Kima Guitart is a good example of the type of artist who has a driving need to experiment, which not only pushes her work forward but undergoes profound metamorphoses. Having said this, it all carries the same clear personal stamp. For all the changes of colours, calligraphies, themes, material textures and the very way the garments are conceived, the plastic language is unmistakably hers. Nonetheless, Kima Guitart’s work is not easily defined: whether she paints large surfaces, decorates scarves or designs folding screens and dresses, she suprasses the constraints of techniques by always coming up with new ideas.
The latest series presented here is an excellent example of all this. It highlights certain items of clothing that reflect the undaunted development of her work and at the same time are entitites unto themselves, to my mind almost architectural constructions.
Kima Guitart began her career constructing dresses that she made into wearable art; pieces that she later deconstructed by subverting the models to bring informal and unique solutions to clothing, which in her current phase - that I refer to as reconstructing - she treats in a special way in that she allows constructivist-based or neoplasticist geometry to play a major part because her patterns are far removed from the mainstream. These are dresses with a random structure, vigorous ornamentation and either warm or cold colours in which it is the gesture of her writing painted onto the material that refers us to her plastic language.
Faced with these creations we may ask ourselves whether Kima Guitart’s work falls into the realm of fashion, design, craft production or art, and yet we would never come up with the right definition because she touches on all of these fields and makes them her own. Drawing upon all of these fields she extracts the material and technical possibilities that most interest her and, using her ability to look at things afresh, she gives them a new form and a new life and makes them into new choices that respond to the mentality and behaviour of her contemporaries.»
Daniel Giralt-Miracle: historian and art critic
« “Kima Guitart is a good example of the type of artist who has a driving need to experiment, which not only pushes her work forward but undergoes profound metamorphoses. Having said this, it all carries the same clear personal stamp. For all the changes of colours, calligraphies, themes, material textures and the very way the garments are conceived, the plastic language is unmistakably hers. Nonetheless, Kima Guitart’s work is not easily defined: whether she paints large surfaces, decorates scarves or designs folding screens and dresses, she suprasses the constraints of techniques by always coming up with new ideas.
The latest series presented here is an excellent example of all this. It highlights certain items of clothing that reflect the undaunted development of her work and at the same time are entitites unto themselves, to my mind almost architectural constructions.
Kima Guitart began her career constructing dresses that she made into wearable art; pieces that she later deconstructed by subverting the models to bring informal and unique solutions to clothing, which in her current phase - that I refer to as reconstructing - she treats in a special way in that she allows constructivist-based or neoplasticist geometry to play a major part because her patterns are far removed from the mainstream. These are dresses with a random structure, vigorous ornamentation and either warm or cold colours in which it is the gesture of her writing painted onto the material that refers us to her plastic language.
Faced with these creations we may ask ourselves whether Kima Guitart’s work falls into the realm of fashion, design, craft production or art, and yet we would never come up with the right definition because she touches on all of these fields and makes them her own. Drawing upon all of these fields she extracts the material and technical possibilities that most interest her and, using her ability to look at things afresh, she gives them a new form and a new life and makes them into new choices that respond to the mentality and behaviour of her contemporaries.»
Daniel Giralt-Miracle: historian and art critic
CORREDOR MATHEOS
Kima Guitart: Camins d’Aigua
Galeria Montcada
Barcelona, 2004
Kima Guitart: Camins d’Aigua
Galeria Montcada
Barcelona, 2004
WATER JOURNEYS
« “Reality is slippery and it escapes through our fingers if we try to catch it. Art, the best art, sensible and well grounded as it may seem, shares this condition with things we consider real. Kima Guitart’s work is a good example of this. The very title of this exhibition makes this point. In these silks, the opacity of wool and the sheen of silk compensate each other and reach a subtlety that is solid and transparent at the same time.
There are no shapes to talk about. There are circles and curving lines, and spirals as well, a few of which remind us of the famous double spiral of DNA. Shape unfolds and seems to close in on itself, without quite doing so, as if it tried to take shelter in itself. The world is taking form or is just so, in constant fluctuation. It makes more sense to talk about colour signs or strips that stretch out horizontally spanning the space from one side to the other of a canvas, as if going to infinity.
Pigment and water run freely on the space chosen for it by the artist. Colour is never sharp, it does not claim our attention. Tonalities are reddish, dark, blue-gray, ochre, watery green. Tenuous, delicate, liquid , like the shapes. The artist does not wish to provoke us, nor that we stop at any set point. Everything moves, oscillates, and shines through uncountable points of light. The whole space vibrates and everything states that art is one and that the work of Kima Guitart, while it makes an impression on our sensitivity, resonates with ancient cultures at the same time as belonging entirely to the present.
Or while belonging entirely to the present.»
Corredor Mateos: art critic and writer
« “Reality is slippery and it escapes through our fingers if we try to catch it. Art, the best art, sensible and well grounded as it may seem, shares this condition with things we consider real. Kima Guitart’s work is a good example of this. The very title of this exhibition makes this point. In these silks, the opacity of wool and the sheen of silk compensate each other and reach a subtlety that is solid and transparent at the same time.
There are no shapes to talk about. There are circles and curving lines, and spirals as well, a few of which remind us of the famous double spiral of DNA. Shape unfolds and seems to close in on itself, without quite doing so, as if it tried to take shelter in itself. The world is taking form or is just so, in constant fluctuation. It makes more sense to talk about colour signs or strips that stretch out horizontally spanning the space from one side to the other of a canvas, as if going to infinity.
Pigment and water run freely on the space chosen for it by the artist. Colour is never sharp, it does not claim our attention. Tonalities are reddish, dark, blue-gray, ochre, watery green. Tenuous, delicate, liquid , like the shapes. The artist does not wish to provoke us, nor that we stop at any set point. Everything moves, oscillates, and shines through uncountable points of light. The whole space vibrates and everything states that art is one and that the work of Kima Guitart, while it makes an impression on our sensitivity, resonates with ancient cultures at the same time as belonging entirely to the present.
Or while belonging entirely to the present.»
Corredor Mateos: art critic and writer
PILAR PARCERISAS
Kima Guitart: Mural Silks
Fundació “la Caixa”
Catalogo de l’exposició
Barcelona, 1993
Kima Guitart: Mural Silks
Fundació “la Caixa”
Catalogo de l’exposició
Barcelona, 1993
MURAL SILKS
« “Always a transgressor in spirit, Kima Guitart has broken away from the conventions binding the ancient Japanese techniques of handpainting on silk in order to endow them with a sensibility more closely attuned to western culture. By using extremely liquid anilines she manages to create on the silk the same effect as watercolour on paper, so extensively utilized and so artistically rich throughout Oriental iconography. With the use these inks she obtains a broad spectrum of transparencies which make up the palette of these wall-silks mounted on stretchers. The silks, imported from China, India and Japan, are natural supports which become fields of action, pentagrams for abstract compositions, signs of vital spontaneity that have found their reflection in the symbolic.
An expert in the field of the fashion show and the balancing of the relations between clothes and the human body, Kima Guitart is now seeking in the mural dimension another, different, conception of space and time. The depth of the surface, the support as open, limitless space, incline us towards seeing in these large silks colour fields carrying resonances of the space Rothko conquered. Rich ranges of reds, blues, greys, ochres are ready to capture the gesture with all the potency of which the hand is capable by means of a single expansive movement.
Kima Guitart has arrived at a perfect symbiosis between the most ancestral past and the most vitally immediate present, just as Picasso, Wilfredo Lam and so many of the surrealists did in their day. On the one hand, at the level of technique, she traces an arc linking the cultures of West and East, following the steps of the old silk and spice route; while on the other she imports the exoticism of primitive Africa; two routes that converge precisely on the Mediterranean. Daughter of this culture, the artist has forged a synthesis from the traditional techniques of Japanese hand-painting and Western culture, from which she has drawn the purity, movement and gestural quality of American abstract expressionism. From Africa, the asceticism of the primitive sign, its repetitive lyricism and high symbolic charge. Her travels to Mali, Algeria, the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta to learn the techniques of treating fabrics have not been for nothing. Perhaps there she discovered that the most archaic signs are still alive today because the human body continues to cast the same shadow.
These mural silks are musical and poetic. They present themselves as interior landscapes, strata of emotions accumulated through lived experience. This is an art that demands sensitivity of the eye, and the capacity to approach the tactile by way of the visual, and vice versa. Like the Japanese poets, Kima Guitart endeavours in her work to enter more deeply into the human mystery, an enigma without end.»
Pilar Parcerisas: art critic, curator of exhibitions and screenwriter
CALVO SERRALLER
Kima. Pintura sobre seda, p. 5
Galeria Columela
Madrid, 1988
Kima. Pintura sobre seda, p. 5
Galeria Columela
Madrid, 1988
THE ROUTE OF SILK
« “Shining, revealing, light, warm and caressing is silk. Successfully staining it demands possession not just of the concepts of colour science, but of the highly uncertain and risky art of tonal correspondences as well. The subtle lightness of the silk support, made more complicated by its extreme sensitivity to light, could be paralyzing. Too controlled an approach may end up in a boringly mechanical juxtaposition of industrial colours and tonalities; excessive liberty may simply end up in catastrophe. To obtain artistic control one needs a lot of thought and feeling and of course a secure hand. By soaking it, the technique of applying colour to silk may look like watercolour painting, like the expanding watery stains that leave a wake of gradually diffuse contour.
Kima paints, but in addition she narrates stories. But what is Kima’s story? It‘s an adventure through the silk route, searching for the horn of plenty Kima lives colour as an experience of flying, drifting and gliding in the wind. She walks in paths where one sees parades of worlds like dreamed-of realities, weightless visions. Silks become sails to fly and life turns into a dream.»
Francisco Calvo Serraller: historian, essayist, art critic and writer
« “Shining, revealing, light, warm and caressing is silk. Successfully staining it demands possession not just of the concepts of colour science, but of the highly uncertain and risky art of tonal correspondences as well. The subtle lightness of the silk support, made more complicated by its extreme sensitivity to light, could be paralyzing. Too controlled an approach may end up in a boringly mechanical juxtaposition of industrial colours and tonalities; excessive liberty may simply end up in catastrophe. To obtain artistic control one needs a lot of thought and feeling and of course a secure hand. By soaking it, the technique of applying colour to silk may look like watercolour painting, like the expanding watery stains that leave a wake of gradually diffuse contour.
Kima paints, but in addition she narrates stories. But what is Kima’s story? It‘s an adventure through the silk route, searching for the horn of plenty Kima lives colour as an experience of flying, drifting and gliding in the wind. She walks in paths where one sees parades of worlds like dreamed-of realities, weightless visions. Silks become sails to fly and life turns into a dream.»
Francisco Calvo Serraller: historian, essayist, art critic and writer
ROSA M. MARTIN I ROS
Dir. of the Mus. of Textiles and Clothing
Pasarela Gaudì
Barcelona, 1985
Dir. of the Mus. of Textiles and Clothing
Pasarela Gaudì
Barcelona, 1985
KIMA PRESENTS HER FIRST COLLECTION
« For the first time, Kima Guitart presents a collection. We are facing a phenomenon unlike the usual ones in the world of fashion. It is as if the clock started moving backwards and instead of the products made in series of the industrial society we live in, we were shown exclusive, unique and unrepeatable items. For Kima Guitart offers us a parade of clothes designed and made one by one, each different from all others, where the art of making garments joins the art of painting, the latter keeping the strongest role.
This way to paint while keeping the two-idimensional character of cloth becomes three-dimensional as it covers the human body and acquires moviment as the latter moves. And for these paintings she uses the noblest of natural fibres: silk. All her work is in silk. All the forms of weaving silk into a flat cloth are used. Thus we see the shine of satin and the transparency of organdy together with the opacity and the subdued effects of matte silk, covered with brillantly colored or darker brush strokes, depending on how the material’s qualities offer her different options to experiment.
Her garments are made the traditional way, like nineteenth century waistcoats used to be embroidered. She directly outlines on the stretched piece of silk the shape that the garment will have and then applies colors. First, she paints the background parts, then the motifs that decorate them, using a RESERVA, a wash or other techniques. Her canvases, whether you call them clothes you dress with or paintings in their own right, are decorated with abstract shapes and broad brushstrokes, the result of evolution from figurative art, inspired by nature, that under the admitted influence of Japanese art arrives to pure abstraction, where the brushstroke is everything by itself, a way of expressing color.
The Japanese influence is not only in the brushstrokes that decorate the fabric, it also resides in the form of pieces, dresses, coats, blouses, and so on. It is clear in all her art. It is an influence that takes nothing away from the originality of these clothes, on the contrary, it gives to objects conceived for the western world an exclusivity and refinement typical of exquisite eastern items.
Kima Guitart’s creations are entirely unique objects, conceived, designed, painted and cut the craftman’s way, all by the same person. In them, form is a function of paint, which in turn is a function of form, thus making a symbiosis that can only be defined as true art.»
Rosa M. Martin Ros: art historian, specialist in textile materials, director of the Textile and Clothing Museum between 1982 and 2002
« For the first time, Kima Guitart presents a collection. We are facing a phenomenon unlike the usual ones in the world of fashion. It is as if the clock started moving backwards and instead of the products made in series of the industrial society we live in, we were shown exclusive, unique and unrepeatable items. For Kima Guitart offers us a parade of clothes designed and made one by one, each different from all others, where the art of making garments joins the art of painting, the latter keeping the strongest role.
This way to paint while keeping the two-idimensional character of cloth becomes three-dimensional as it covers the human body and acquires moviment as the latter moves. And for these paintings she uses the noblest of natural fibres: silk. All her work is in silk. All the forms of weaving silk into a flat cloth are used. Thus we see the shine of satin and the transparency of organdy together with the opacity and the subdued effects of matte silk, covered with brillantly colored or darker brush strokes, depending on how the material’s qualities offer her different options to experiment.
Her garments are made the traditional way, like nineteenth century waistcoats used to be embroidered. She directly outlines on the stretched piece of silk the shape that the garment will have and then applies colors. First, she paints the background parts, then the motifs that decorate them, using a RESERVA, a wash or other techniques. Her canvases, whether you call them clothes you dress with or paintings in their own right, are decorated with abstract shapes and broad brushstrokes, the result of evolution from figurative art, inspired by nature, that under the admitted influence of Japanese art arrives to pure abstraction, where the brushstroke is everything by itself, a way of expressing color.
The Japanese influence is not only in the brushstrokes that decorate the fabric, it also resides in the form of pieces, dresses, coats, blouses, and so on. It is clear in all her art. It is an influence that takes nothing away from the originality of these clothes, on the contrary, it gives to objects conceived for the western world an exclusivity and refinement typical of exquisite eastern items.
Kima Guitart’s creations are entirely unique objects, conceived, designed, painted and cut the craftman’s way, all by the same person. In them, form is a function of paint, which in turn is a function of form, thus making a symbiosis that can only be defined as true art.»
Rosa M. Martin Ros: art historian, specialist in textile materials, director of the Textile and Clothing Museum between 1982 and 2002
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• Versió en Català
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Kima Guitart © 2020 — Barcelona
• Versió en Català
• Versión en Español
• English Version
Kima Guitart © 2020 — Barcelona