Looking at Carbono 14 we can actually talk of the earth that has been swept away. The idea is condensed in abstract paintings which—because of their rich textures and restrained colors—we can associate with the Catalan informalism of the 50's. But, it is really about something else. Gomezbarros imagines, augurs and represents a shattered world where only the most reticent of insects would survive. The connotation is simple; the preparation, complex. The work is a warning, a discordant scream, perhaps an exorcism to prevent anything of what has been augured from happening.

 

In an era of globalization, destruction isn't partial but global. We all participate in them. The more sophisticated and technological a society is, the more aggressive it becomes and the more poison it belches out into the atmosphere. The more basic and primitive it is, the less capacity it has to destroy and the less it will contribute towards generalized pollution. In his latest series, Gomezbarros has created a metaphor based on carbon- 14 — in other words, the “radioactive yardstick” which measures with a certain degree of accuracy the age of centuries-old objects. A marginal, but pertinent, reflection: Could it be that, due precisely to the fact that he lacks sophisticated technologies, primitive man is predestined to be the only one capable of surviving the catastrophe augured and the one to repopulate the Earth with his scarce resources?

 

Alvaro Medina