MARÍAJOSÉ DE SIMÓN

Painting as an inner force.

Jeannette Betancourt

​

Far from the networks of the art world, its theorization, and the tensions of the market, María José de Simón surrounds herself with the serenity impregnated in the vegetation around her studio accompanied by three dogs and, it is then, when she surrenders herself with momentum to the enjoyment of painting.

With a proven mastery of color and its scope, the Spanish painter (Santander, 1963- ) has understood, in the series of paintings presented in this exhibition entitled Influencias, that setting limits to chromatism unleashes a further, more significant, and richer potency: more powerful.

And it could not be any other way, de Simón transcribes to painting her person: an energetic character, with a determined temperament. Black, gray, and white tones structure a unifying course in a production primarily linked to ochers and vermilion. The artist endows the canvas with a gesturality that increases through the violence of the sgraffito, releasing a composite energy that tries to go beyond the borders of the canvas.

In the paintings that make up the exhibition Influencias, María José de Simón seems to sense a close relationship between her personal intensity and the one that arises in today's society: one of transgressed limits where only possibility exists.