El ojo que no perdona

There is a famous saying that, like all things that have become too popular, has lost its meaning: “When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you.” It goes without saying—or perhaps not—that Nietzsche was speaking of a metaphorical abyss that poetically expresses a basic concept in scientific research: there is no observation without intervention. It is impossible to engage with the subject or place being studied without changing it in the process. The evocative—and overused—phrase explains the second part of that phenomenon, in which the observer also changes through their activity.

In the 19th century, it was mistakenly believed that the last image a person saw before dying remained imprinted on their retina. What was biologically false is psychologically true. It is not possible to look without what you see affecting you at the same time. This is a roundabout way of speaking, among other things, of how vital context is and to what extent it is not an external agent, but an extension of ourselves.

Fernando Barrios Benavides’s painting has evolved in recent years from a non-realistic figurative style in which facial features took center stage—eyes, noses, and teeth appearing in self-portraits with psychological undertones—to an increasing—and almost complete—abstraction. This has been a natural progression in which those recognizable forms have gradually been synthesized, blended, and intertwined with one another, as well as with the highly specific materials he uses: cement, plaster, discarded construction materials, roof tiles, cobblestones, small ruins…

This archaeology of modern architecture stemmed from research he conducted in one of his previous studios located in Madrid’s Fuencarral neighborhood. To reach it, he had to cross several vacant lots littered with rubble from collapsed buildings. There he recognized whimsical, attractive forms, as well as remnants of his former life. Much of that debris bore traces of human activity: wallpaper, textured paint, layers of acrylic paint over more layers of paint…

They were reminders of lives—of the decisions those forgotten people had made in their most intimate and important spaces, in the privacy of their homes, their sanctuaries. And they were also reminders of the transformation they underwent when reduced to rubble, whereby valuable materials and spaces—now nearly inaccessible to a growing segment of the population—became little more than trash. Ironically, yet very fittingly, the very building that housed his studio ended up becoming rubble shortly after he moved out.

Her personal journey, her years as an architecture student, and her belonging to one of the generations most affected by the housing crisis led her to adopt all these elements—sometimes literally, by incorporating debris into her paintings and sculptures—along with construction materials to create a more comprehensive body of work. Until then, his interest had focused on psychological self-portraiture through the simplification of forms, but it then expanded to condense into a single space the other half of those faces—the abyss they were gazing into.

Thus, his current compositions are constructed through the manipulation of lines—whose origins can be traced back to his earlier portraits—and the layering of building materials, personal objects, and papers (including documents and manuscripts belonging to him and his close associates). All condensed to create a singular vision of a mind and its daily material conditions. His paintings can be interpreted as fragments of a wall torn away after the passage of time and human activity have altered them. The personal is reflected, at the same time, in the most concrete—material—and the most evocative (formal) ways.

The result of this refinement is the body of work that comprises *The Eye That Does Not Forgive*. They are almost altarpieces, meant to be contemplated, explored in their nooks and crannies, scribbles, patterns, incisions, and layer upon layer of discarded elements, as the underlying nature of his painting has a distinctly subconscious character. But also, in their vast expanses of continuous, almost uninterrupted white. Chaos and nothingness coexist in the same space.

The work is a midpoint between his consciousness and the walls that surround it. They are the search for a single point where they meet and take on immediate meaning, for him and for the public. The recognition of the mystical, overwhelming experience at the heart of modern cities; the interior of our relentless, cement-covered eyes.