Carmi-Matisse , 1998

The tradition of Spanish Catalan classical landscape portraiture, is the culture in which Albert Rafols Casamada grew up. For him, and several of his contemporaries, the features of this land, are a statement about their definition of what reality fundamentally is: an immediate awareness of colour, soil, space, and time. Casamada's ability to apprehend the mood and character of the light that pulsates across the Catalan plains, strongly defined hie earlier works. Born in 1923 in an artistic family (both his parents were painters), he started sketching from an early age and studied architecture at the University of Barcelona for a few years before choosing to become a painter at the age of 25. His academic training impacted his work with a continued sense of structure. An early figurative phase gradually gave way to fully-fledged works of abstraction, immersed in his continued interest in the Catalan terrain and environment. He was significantly influenced by an exhibition of the abstract expressionist works of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in Madrid which he attended in 1959. It encapsulated his own desire to incorporate the language of the avant garde modernity in his own paintings, which are steeped in the tradition of his Latin heritage. Besides being a long -established painter, Casamada is also an internationally acclaimed poet in the Spanish speaking world. His remarkable contribution to this Catalan school of abstract expressionism, rooted in the lyrical description of everyday life, played a vital part in establishing and developing Spanish modern art.