Marcelo Pombo

On entering the exhibition hall, the visitor is faced with the wonders that Pombo has found during his journey: the arabesques that the foam draws when the blue waves become choppy; the undulating turquoise jellyfish and the jewels he discovered at the bot- tom of the sea: some brilliant gems that go beyond the surface of the pictures and roll onto the floor.

The genesis of Pombo’s meticulous production, for which he resorts to the already famous and artisanal “drop-on-drop” of paint technique, must be traced far back in time, in the illuminated books of the Middle Ages. Just like those monks who, in the supposedly dark centuries spanning the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, managed to preserve in glorious miniatures the seeds of art and knowledge, our artist presents us now with the gift of a new blossoming. Thus, like in the case of the pages densely covered with images of the illuminated manuscripts, which reveal their magic to the viewer when he or she draws near to observe them, the grace of Pombo’s paintings is enhanced when the spectator approaches them, when he/she can discover the details hiding behind the whirlwind of floating forms.

If one observes the splendor of those seas carefully, the manual labor implied acquires a special distinction; its magnificence seduces the viewer. Pombo is an unmissable, unavoidable figure within the group that emerged in the 1990s from the Rojas Cultural Center, producing a playful art hypothetically bearing no relation to the socio political context. At the time when he worked as a handicrafts teacher in a school for children with special needs in San Francisco Solano, he had become a creator of illusions, capable of imagining marvelous universes and of forging them through the use of precarious materials. His Christmas in San Francisco Solano (some soap boxes and bleach bottles on which snow falls sweetly) or the Cepita juice cartons adorned with party supplies) contributed an unexpected step forward to Pop Art: it incorporated the tenderness which had been absent until then and which was missing in the cold Brillo Boxes or in the Campbell’s Soup Cans. This effective plus, this ineffable sentimental capital appeared in Pombo’s modest objects; it adopted the capricious shape of a spark of glitter or of some flowery garlands; it arrived as an unexpected gift that contributed its dose of sweetness to the strict rigor of everyday life.

Today, the works stand out as never before; they are here to embel- lish the world, to renew Stendhal’s famous words when he asserted that “Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.” Pombo works with Christopher Grimes Gallery in Santa Monica, but now he is finally back in Buenos Aires with his festive spirit, his taste for the ornamental, his excessive Baroque style, but preserving, however, the melancholic undertone that renders his work unmistakable.