Why do I paint?

Why painting? Why oil? Why canvas? Why figure?

It's easy to do an exercise.

You have to make an X, this size, with this theme.

It's difficult when we have to decide what to do ourselves. Not only because of the creative challenge, but also, at least for me, because they have to have a reason for existing.

I blame my rational mind, which has haunted me in a way since childhood. It made me interested in decorative arts and crafts because, in a way, I saw a purpose in their existence. But it didn't satisfy me.

So why did I decide to go into oil painting? Why did I decide to do figurative work? I'll share the reasons I give myself:

1. I accepted that it wasn't a rational choice. That it simply made sense, it fit. I wouldn't say, however, that it was emotional. But it was an acceptance of what my body was telling me about the sensation of working with oil paint. A click that hadn't happened before with anything else. And that may happen with other things in the future.

2. It was a pragmatic choice from a technical standpoint, a way to start breaking new ground. There are "rules," and both in terms of materials and the market, there's an ease that other ways of working don't have from the start.

3. It is commercially viable and easy to promote in terms of visual record and public understanding of the object.

It may seem unromantic to begin studio notes with practical and commercial concerns. But what would be the point of hiding the reasons that influenced my choices simply to protect an image of purity in artistic practice? We all have or feel practical limitations that we have to deal with. Furthermore, ethics are a fundamental value for me, so if the first point didn't exist, the other two would never be relevant… And if I had any doubts about working with integrity, I would never comment on these issues. Therefore, let there be transparency and the thoughts of someone who is just beginning their journey.

In any case, for me these justifications are not at all satisfactory to answer the question I pose. The first one is the closest and leads me to propose a hypothesis: the body knows before the mind and is related to our senses and sensitivity in general. And that is what fuels the work I do as an artist, being attentive to the sensitive side that makes choices that I still don't fully understand, or at least that I am not yet able to put into words.

Perhaps that's why I also feel this need to put it in writing. Not as a way to develop new work, but as a way to understand the work I've already done.

I suppose this will be a way of extracting knowledge from practice, of transforming into something understandable that which is not initially discovered through words.

Therefore, at this moment I don't have a definitive answer. And I want these notes to accompany the process of everything I'm going to develop, and perhaps find the answers to the questions that trouble me.