La pintura como campo de batalla"

The artist´s fear when confronted with the whiteness of the canvas is like the one of the writer facing the empty sheet. It is an existential paralysis that does not have much to do with the possibility of not achieving a significant image or writing, but with the danger of not being able to set in motion the creative process that sustains the author in his place. Every time a piece of art is undertaken, a battle is initiated, which is, in the first place, a personal crusade. It is the struggle to keep the passion, the vocation and the energy that build up the spinal column of the artist´s everyday work.
Liliana Golubinsky´s paintings extend this dynamic to the pictorial field itself. On its surfaces, the characters and the events cram together in some sort of agonic fight, heterogeneous but productive. A vibrant movement that runs through the fabrics, providing them with a singular life, a vitality that is almost instantly transferred to the observer´s eye and which finds its calmness only when the conglomerates of images reveal themselves in their metaphors and meanings.
Although the motives have been changing with the passing of time, the dynamic construction of plastic space is an authorial stigma that insists on translating the complexity of our contemporary world. In fact, there are numerous references to current life, to the troubles we face in our everyday reality, to the values and peculiarities that dictate ways of being and thinking. But all these amnesties appear mostly in playful shapes, in visual games and ironies, in situations that shape a critical perspective founded on a cute personal view.

The battles of painting

The artworks of the late 90s show a Liliana Golubinsky devoted to the task of erecting her imaginary universe from quotes and appropriations. Using the collage technique, she cuts out maps and characters of the history of art and glues them onto the canvas, shaping visual sets riddled with repetitions, tributes and resounding.
Some of the images are particularly recurrent, as in the Equestrian Portrait of the Count- Duque of Olivares, by Diego Velázquez, other horsemen and old ships. With all of them, she builds true war scenarios – as in Won Battle (1995) - or paintings related to war attacks and conquests - Each one serving their game (1999), Storm at sea (1999), The Precession (2000)-. In all cases, the space is designed through the use of the driven back plane, which translates the horizontal positions into vertical locations, giving a complete and instant vision to the viewer, of everything that is happening in it. The painting is built with glazes and overlapping layers, which give it a density and an obscurity that contrast with the lightness of her later productions.
Many of these paintings are often crossed by an automatic writing which configures an underground layer, at the same time textual and visual. A narrative substrate is unfolded on it and could perfectly work as some sort of historic memory. However, its content is incomprehensible - or rather, it can only be apprehended in fragments. Thus, it is more evocative than informative: it does not intend to reveal the meaning of the representation but it makes it more complex with an open element to signification.
All along these years, some marks begin to appear which still continue – and even deepen-in later works. One of them has to do with the titles. In many cases, they come from the popular culture, idioms, songs, movies, sayings, etc.- That ermine overcoat (1997), Each one serving their game (1999), The Lieutenant´s little donkey (2002)-.In this period the ironic, critical and mocking view is also present and it will be maximized later on. In The carousel spins round (1997), for instance, the horsemen ride wheeled horses and the battle has turned into a real game.
Another important aspect is found in its narrative nature. All Golubinsky´s artworks possess some kind of plot substrate, even if it is not evident at first sight. But the most outstanding feature is that it is erected over a multitude of micro-stories, many times incongruent, which only seem to be compatible because of space proximity. If one gazes at them closely, it is possible to notice the lack of interconnection among the characters that live in the canvas and among the events that each of them is carrying out. This feature will deepen in later years, when the subjects lose the patina of the historic story-line to tackle the contemporary world. Here, the multitudes are formed by individuals with lonely attitudes, isolated, devoted to specific tasks of their environment, prisoners of indifference, lack of interest or alienation.

Up to the neck

At the dawn of the millennium, Golubinsky´s paintings begin to suffer an important transformation. Together with some figures borrowed from the history of art, which are painted on the canvas now (and not cut out or glued), some others emerge, invented by her, quickly depicted, with simple but convincing features. The academic critic of art Nelly Perazzo, is right when she affirms that, with this decision, the artist “starts speaking by herself instead of doing it in third person”.
This process occurs gradually. In artworks such as Whitening stories (2002), the horsemen and the ship coexist with a multitude of human figures which, from a second plane, demand attention to their presence. As these figures gain leadership, the materiality and the composition of the canvas change. The painting is paving its way to the drawing as a visual axis and becomes more superficial. The palette is reduced and the pure colors, which adjust to precise sectors of the representation, gain more relevance. In With no consolation at all (2002), for instance, the background presents a homogeneous ocher coloration, while the soldiers that inhabit it wear blue and red uniforms.
This latter reference is not innocent. For those who know the national history, the conflict between blues and reds reminds us of a precise moment of intestine fights within the army. Even when the artwork refers to no specific event, there is a figure on it composed by a feminine half surrounded by the Argentine flag and a cow half, which is no doubt an allegory of the Argentine Republic. This, as well as the one about the wheeled horses which carry the military men on them, move on the platforms implying that they are child game entities.
The political inter-text is not fortuitous. All along the years posterior to the social and institutional crisis of December 2001, it frequently appears, either consciously or unconsciously, as a horizon of significance. The titles of the paintings in this period leave no room for doubt in that respect: We are all submerged (2001), It is coming up to the neck (2002), Dog hunger (2002), With no consolation at all (2002), The cardboard-man (2004). They are artworks created amidst a dark and painful period for the country, in a period of uncertainty and questioning, which could leave nobody indifferent, and which was singularly intense for the production of most of the artists of that time.
Parallel to this, the bases and means of production are being diversified. Linen becomes the favorite surface to carry forward these pieces: inside out, prepared or not, plain or hatched, it starts to intervene with its singular materiality and texture in the imaginary worlds that come from the hand of the artist. A set of tools for creation is unfolded : the acrylics, the coal, the pastels, the chalk pastels, the markers. Each one prints its mark on the final product with more or less resistance, according to the movement that the stand asks for.
On the other hand, Golubinsky works with no sketches. All the composition is created directly on the canvas. According to the artist, the figures appear among the linen imperfections, on the stains and shadows, among the irregularities and folds; you only have to give them birth. With patience, they start emerging until the whole gains meaning. This process may take many days, or even, it may never occur. But the author refuses to force any draft or to prepare sketches which could eventually help her to achieve her objective. It is in the spontaneity, the investigation and the finding, where she finds the key to her method of creation.

Equilibrists

By the year 2004, the canvases start being inhabited by flying, acrobatic, instable characters. The pictorial space is now strictly vertical, with low and high sectors, and a flat composition that maximizes bi-dimensional readings. The backgrounds tend to be homogeneous though, in occasions, they outline some attempt of volume or horizon line. But the visual weight is definitely focused on the figures that acquire an unquestionable leadership.
Some paintings make their themes with the appearance of these characters. Puppeteer (2004), Hanging (2006), The Circus (2006), Mortal jump (2006), We are all equilibrists (2006), I hold you (2008), justify from their titles the presence of these beings who are hanging in the air or trying to keep the balance. This feeling of anguish frequently appears connected to the urban area - as in Overcrowding (2006), The blue dress (2006), It´s not me, it´s you (2006), I assault you, you assault me (2007) – but many times, she seems to be speaking about some sort of contemporary feeling, about the complexity of the world and the consequences we suffer in our everyday lives.
The generalization of imbalance builds scenes of marked dynamism. In Belonging to the same side (2005), people and animals orbit vertical axes which configure an agile situation, mobile and playful. In Hanging (2006) and Birds in the head (2006), some individuals taking hold of others, balance and disappear towards the top frame. A bit of wind (2006) is organized over a centrifugal composition in which men, women and dogs (animal that frequently appears during these years) keep projecting to the edges of the canvas with angular impulse. Some of the titles appeal to gerunds to emphasize the general image of movement, such as Bearing (2007) and Circling (2009).
At the same time, a set of artworks exhibits a fragmented space that introduces some share of statism without eliminating the tensions completely, though. In Help me to get out (2008), the representation is divided by a horizontal line that separates a diaphanous higher plane from a lower sector crowded with crammed pedestrians and vehicles. In When Periquito was bare (2009), It rains in my city (2009), It goes to the head (2009) and Are you listening to me? (2012), Golubinsky resorts to a grid of small paintings to segment the composition. Each of them develops a simple and condensed story which, as it multiplies, comes to terms with the complex and intricate worlds of the bigger canvas. On the other side, and as a distinctive mark, the colors have been reduced to black and white, with some red touches which emphasize lines and stains.
Acrobats, contortionists, equilibrists print a spectacular nature on these artworks. Everything is offered to contemplation with an exhibitionist sense that appeals to the spectator, even when this volition does not seem to exist towards the interior of the paintings; in Look into my eyes (2006), for instance, none of the characters crosses glance. They appear to be the actors of stories destined to the exterior look and therefore, they involve the observer. It is not accidental that many titles are phrases based upon appellations: I am the woman of your dreams (2006), I assault you, you assault me (2007), Don´t be negative (2008), I don´t lend it to you (2009), Help me to get out (2009) Beware! You make me see the stars (2009).
Nelly Perazzo detects sarcasm in this “extravagant world of characters in acrobatic positions and impossible equilibriums”. In any case, it is evident that there is an underlying tragic sense: a capacity to overcome obstacles, accompanied by an incapacity for communication. These subject matters deepen in her later artworks, as these friendly characters give way to the multitude.

Among disputes and celebrations

The year 2010 leaves its mark on Liliana Golubinsky´s artwork. The bicentennial celebrations of the May Revolution revive reflections upon the Argentinian history and the political situation in the country. In this context, the artist offers her own view over these topics with the irony and humor that characterize her. Bicentennial. Looking into history through the eyes of a girl (2010) adopts this critical perspective. The artwork is divided into two clearly differentiated parts. In the lower part, some small school girls seem to have fun and play. Above them, in some kind of cartoon cloud, different characters associated with the national history turn up: women with fans and hair combs, soldiers with badges, General San Martin, and the Andes mountaintops, a protecting virgin. But the centre of the cloud is filled by three devils which also cross, like ghosts, the lower part of the painting. This discordant mark forces to re-think the whole. In that respect, the artist makes reference to the famous phrase “the devil put its tail into it”, to the interferences and incidentals which may always be there, round the corner, and which may change the sense of the celebrations.
In this same line of thought, Golubinsky focuses her attention on the figures of the national leaders, these people exalted by memory, in which the society as a whole places its hopes. Her view, of course, is not at all indulgent. A piece like The National hero staggers (2011) makes this evident at once. However, it is not a question of wrecking these history bastions without thought.
On the contrary, it has to do with prescribing a profound reflection on the heroism, its possibilities and consequences, past, present and future. What have our history heroes been turned into? How are they being instrumented by the speeches which evoke them in the present?
In this sense, it is interesting to notice the artist ´s devotion to the feat of our greatest hero, San Martin (2011). In this artwork, the crossing of the Andes Mountains appears to be a complex, forced and titanic task, which is not carried out by one person, but by a numerous group of daring people. Bringing back the collective value and losing the sacred nature of the proper names is part of a revisionist process that we still have to complete.

The dynamic of the multitudes

As the first decade of the 21st century pushes forward, Liliana Golubinsky keeps developing and improving a heterogeneous, complex and crammed composition form. The fabrics are dwelled by numerous characters that agglutinate into vague masses and transmit the anonymity sense, typical of the large human extensions. Inside, the individuals seem to be busy in simultaneous and incongruent activities. Each of them in its own world, with little perception of others, carries out tasks which do not seem to provide any benefit to the whole. Thus, there is no true community sense, but a joint of solitudes gathered in one space- in general very close - struggling to find a place of belonging and failing in achieving their goal.
Large family (2009) is one of the first paintings which exhibit this kind of structure. Here, people of different ages distribute themselves in rows, occupying the whole of the painting in a vertical fashion. Among them, there are school girls, mothers with babies, ladies and gentlemen, children and adults, face and profile, and in the most diverse attitudes. Only the grandparents are separated from the whole, generating a singular space which contrasts with the uniformity of the rest of the mass. On the basis of this compositional structure, Golubinsky rehearses multiple solutions that enrich her work. At times, it is possible to identify each of the characters that take part in a multitude- as in the triptych Kicking it for another day (2010) or in Everything is fragile (2011)-; some other times, on the contrary, the popularization reaches such a high extent, that you can hardly distinguish blurred features of lost faces- as in My world and mine (2012), for example - . Sometimes, the figures distribute themselves freely on a diaphanous space managing to retain certain identity – as in My tiny water (2012) -; some other times, the crowds are confined to reduced portions of the pictorial space, which contrast with others of a freer and broader magnitude- as in Throw a life-buoy to me (2012) or The fear (2013), for example-. Finally, there are certain artworks in which the figures locate in different layers of opacity, creating an interesting simultaneity effect- Country day (2013) for instance-, and others in which the faces that pile up generate tridimensional effects- as in From the shadows (2012) -. All these resources exalt Golubinsky´s artwork providing it with an always renewed visuality.
This almost compulsive sum of creatures and situations induces to semantic and syntactic consequences. In the first place, it promotes the development of a non-lineal narrative in terms with the contemporary world. The new technologies have been making us distribute the attention on instant and simultaneous information, which urge us to build stories out of partial or fragmented inputs. This type of attention is extra relevant in Liliana Golubinsky´s artworks. Here, the general action is the result of the addition of the unitary events, even when they are never congruent. But even these events are not in themselves complete.
Many of them hardly suggest what they are; others are practically unrecognizable, others misleading. However, gathered in a totality, they build a dramatic and peculiar atmosphere which is not lacking in sense.
On the other hand, this type of organization makes the confluence of simultaneous times and spaces evident, which many times are equally incongruent. The spatial inversion is common: cars that fly, buildings that grow below the people, animals floating upside down, so on and so forth. Distortions in scale which provoke an alienation of the realistic representation are also habitual.
Sometimes, the situations seem to develop at a different pace but above all, the temporal dislocation is produced at the contemplation level. Since there are zones with concentration of activities and others with an absence of them, the spectators are forced to move visually all over the surface of the fabric at different speeds, printing their own rhythm on the imaginary universes according to their eagerness and interests.
The work done by the on-looker eye deserves a special consideration because the multiplicity of stimuli the eye receives from the pictorial surface forces it to keep in almost permanent motion. This movement is not exclusively produced in the bi-dimension of the plastic representation, but also, in some kind of oscillation between proximity and remoteness, which allows appreciation of the piece from different perspectives. Effectively, it presents different visual information from near and from far, and it is the on-looker´s task to harmonize this variety of points of view in the construction of a totality that possesses some kind of coherence which may satisfy him. This ocular shifting contradicts, somehow or other, the spatial organization of the painting.
Because, even though this is articulated over the Cartesian axes of width and height, the observer´s eye circles freely among faces, actions and objects that call its attention and that lead to an open and free contemplation.

Micro-stories and micro-worlds

The individual actions performed by most of the members of the multitudes that dwell in Golubinsky´s artworks, promote a narrative structure based upon micro-stories. Sometimes, they disintegrate the declarative unit completely to project themselves in a myriad of isolated situations. In My tiny water (2012), this is clearly perceived. Here, the characters distribute on the surface of the fabric, located on small islands which provide them with a place of their own. On each of them, the most unequal actions are carried out: a couple kissing, a woman watering a miniature house, one sailor surrounded by boats and another looking through a spyglass, a fisherman pulling a fish from the water and putting it into the pan of a chef who inhabits another island, a little girl watching her reflection as a man is leaving his shadow. There is no way to establish an axis that unifies all these happenings. And, precisely, this is the proposal of the artist: offering a cosmology of beings and events that allow the viewer to create its own approach playfully to the artistic experience. However, through these images, Golubinsky´s authorial look slides, a look that provides discomfort, that is immersed in the depths, and which points at trouble spots. In Throw a life-buoy to me (2012), a large part of the fabric exhibits a car-race while in the lower right side sectors, the audience crowds together. But when seen up close, it is perceived that the public is not paying attention to the sports dispute. There is a naked woman and a man who seems to sing a serenade to her. Another woman is dancing some dance. There are couples kissing each other and a man who wields a club. There is even a bust of a hero, birds, dogs and other animals. A man surrounded by a life-buoy and located towards the middle of the left edge is staggering, while several people in the crowd seem to play with these saving gadgets. But nobody pays attention to the race. Something similar happens in The house is burning (2014). At the bottom of the painting, a group of people are looking forward or to the side in different attitudes. But nobody seems to see the magnificent fire of a village that is taking place behind their backs. They seem to be anesthetized, or lost, or indifferent. This response –or rather, this unresponsiveness- makes a comment on those who inhabit the world today, driven to become increasingly insensitive to the tragedies that multiply over the globe.
Everything is fragile (2011) adds to this overloaded type of composition, the plastic resource of the artwork with different markers which generates an overlap of figures and actions. At first, the artist works with transparent inks that create a spectral universe. Then she uses a semi-transparent color, like yellow, and adds silhouettes which, at times, merge with the others. Finally, she uses a marker of a net opacity, such as black or gray, which adds another figurative layer that complicates the entirety. In this piece, the relationship between proximity and distance is crucial, as crucial as the interrelationships of the various registers and associations that occur, voluntarily and involuntarily, in the confrontation of the overlapping drawings. Two recent artworks deviate a little from the usual issues in Liliana Golubinsky´s work and can serve as a conclusion to this essay. They are the ones bearing the title Paradises to be found I and II (2013). They deviate from the rest of her production, mainly because they address the biblical iconography. In both, the classical topics of the Genesis Book appear telling about the transgression of God´s law, the expulsion from Eden and the establishment of the Original Sin: the tree of knowledge, the apple of temptation, the serpent, nudity covered with grape leaves. However, the overall tone is not tragic but rather festive. As if the access to knowledge was a kind of liberation, of unexpected potentiality, a promissory future. The title seems to confirm this.
In these artworks there is a playful atmosphere and a sense of optimism that somehow synthesize the spirit of the entire production of the artist. Because even the most critical works never lose the playful and humorous perspective that encourages constructive thinking. In the same way these artworks promise paradises to be found, the most conflicting pieces describe the area of operations of battles that can still be won.