Eduardo Cardozo

The painter's conceptual system is marked by terms – and relative, "concrete", and desired impasses – such as "doubt", "uncertainty", and "mistake", which are already a part of the way he works, of the continuous experimentation with an insidious and stubbornly encouraged fate, of the extremely tight relationship between life experience and its translation into oil painting. Yet it is not about impetuses that are more or less expressionist, romantic aromas, unstoppable but contained fury or psychological convulsions carried into the pigment, but about the tireless use of a brush that drags the self of the doer and drafts his (informal) report, wisely tending to the input of both his concerns and his cultural filters, thereby avoiding mere autobiography. Here is where the true peak of Cardozian painting can be perceived, the (seemingly unbalanced) balance between the traces of a sort of seismograph of his human condition and the knowledge of history, and especially of the history of painting, that allows him to restrain excess, imperatively erasing any naïveté but giving the pathos freedom to take off.

Cardozo's palette has changed gradually throughout the years (due to both the coherence and self - awareness we’ve just mentioned), going, without choc, from earthy to blueish pre - eminences, always prioritizing a persisting presence of nature – earth, air, water – as a primal stimulus. Now, in his aero - aquatic phase (it is hard to miss even Leonardian concerns in his cerulean velature), with this new series, he turns it up a notch regarding the material matter mentioned at the beginning. However, it is no longer about adding something to the canvas, but about the gesture, somewhat self - referential, of sculpting, of "working" – almost (hesitantly) tracing the etymology of the word, that tripalum , an instrument of torture – the canvas itself, distorting it, deforming it and, once ready painting it. What had long ago collapsed, ideally and happily, in many of Cardozo's images – that is, the certainty of a structure that endures its chromatic journeys –, here turns into raw reality. It angrily translates into mistreated, lacerated, bruised and confusing canvases.

On the large pieces, Cardozo handles huge burlaps that he frays, one string at a time, irreversibly modifying the weave of the threads, allowing brutal holes, irreparable injuries, and unusual cracks to spring up (almost as i f he wanted to state that there is no weave 2 without trauma). On them, he masterfully intersperses less serious damage, light traces of disruption, meager disturbance, and even miniscule uncorrupted areas, creating an amazing renovation of the "entramado", which means both plot – a narrative of that which cannot be narrated (the abstract) – and texture - the skin of the painting, baring its most intimate abrasions. The surface of each piece thus becomes a rough terrain where the fibers that make it up are cons tantly on the edge of total collapse, in a precocious state of dissolution, a state that, while it shows its distress, it also reorganizes its shapes, causes intrigue with its new paths, amazes with its irregularities. In his youth, the artist studied with the renowned Uruguayan tapestry artist Ernesto Aroztegui, and now works in reverse, distorting what he had learned to do, in an arduous task of what one could call "unraveling".

The metaphor of the wounded canvas – both in the enormous pieces that are se veral feet long (which might refer to the entire social corpus) and the fragments/smaller paintings (individuals), both equally vulnerable – is not, therefore, just a sign of desolation, failure or crisis, but also a chance to re - think the practice of paint ing, expanding it, without coloring outside the lines.

A possible first connection could be made to the sacks of Alberto Burri, created in the late 40s and early 50s. However, the pictorial interventions of the Italian artist were not only miniscule but t he type of burlap used was actually "found": old sacks of coffee and other foods that arrived at the workshop already stained, unstitched, worn , altered by use and time. In short, by "history". In Cardozo's case, the artist is solely responsible for the st ate of these fabrics. The process is thus total: a kind of reconstructive activity by the brushes is added to the long modification work of the medium. Not just mere recovery, but rectification. Layers of colors that at times reconstruct pieces of the ridd led texture, hold it in place where it had given up, make way for calmness – which is also sensorial, aesthetic. Once again with a mainly soothing sky - blue/blueish tone, although other streaks may flourish, including the preciousness of gold (shining in ope n contrast with the degradation of its habitat ), that spill out in opulent healing compositions. In at least on case, Bandera (Flag) – a kind of large, grave anonymous flag, that is nevertheless visually close both to the sky and the Uruguayan flag – , other pieces of fabric appear as patches to fix the tears, mend the gashes, sew the holes. The topic here is accumulation, hybridization, surprise.

These are paintings that at least initially should not be framed. This is because there is a third phase in the ar tist's creation after the preparation/sacrifice of the fabric and the restorative pleasure of painting: the moment it is hang, which allows new – ever - changing – roads. Barely fixed with some nails, the "canvases" show adjustable folds that add to the pain o f the burlap, adding metamorphic perpetuity and movement to the set – almost evoking, due to its continuity, the baroque fold Gilles Deleuze so cherished – while denouncing its weight, which is essentially the weight of color. Likewise, the distance between the fabric and the wall, and the shadows those wounds cast due to the effect of light, grant new depths, creating a sort of ghost - double of the painting. The ramifications of the dismay and the patching multiply.

This kind of obsessive control by the artis t, craftily applied – as far as possible and looking for the impossible – to a production where nothing can be fully controlled, lays the foundation for Cardozo's fusion with his own expressive language. If the new works carefully reveal this symbiosis, then it becomes almost obscenely obvious - but absolutely revealing and attractive - in Basal , a video produced at the same time as the paintings. In it, the scene is filled by his own naked back used as a canvas and it is filmed in hyper - realistic high definiti on that allows to appreciate even the slightest detail, both of the oil paint and the skin. Once again, the medium is problematized, even going as far as to consider himself as a porous (perhaps broken) weave, a wet (perhaps wounded) burlap, ready to recei ve the "writing". In fact, the artist paints himself without seeing, using his body and all of his usual instruments – gouge, paintbrush, trowel, fingers – moving in hortatory fluctuation, through regrets, finishes and new beginnings, clumping and diluting, moving his hands in a rhabdomantic way along his spine, his shoulder blades, his ribs, and distributing – sometimes softly, sometimes roughly – the black, white, sky - blue oil paint, unable to see the result on the spot. This is an emblematic and exemplary mo ment of that continuous challenge of the "next" brushstroke with the unknown, which is the hallmark of his "landscapes". The muscles on his back work so that the arms move and are able to color it: for a few minutes painter and paint seem to blur together.