Rafael Diaz is trained both in the medical and the fine arts field. One could suggest that it is these opposing mindsets, the rational and scientific vs. the creative and spontaneous, that exemplify the struggle in his paintings. Radical and defiant splashes of royal blue paint explode across the canvas expressing a raw and honest emotion rarely seen in much artwork today. It is this refreshing approach that entices the viewer, and it's the energy of the moment that captivates ones eye and appeals to a deep sense of intensity and unrestricted emotion.
Looking back one could contextualize Diaz's work within the Action Painting genre as it draws on similar techniques and ritualistic action. However it is evident that the work transcends this traditional classification, opting for a simpler and clearer approach that functions in a contemporary context. Collector Mario Cader Frech says of his work "Although these paintings can have associations to visual artists like Jackson Pollock and Norman Bluhm, which were a product of the post-war artistic insurgence, during the era when psychoanalysis and quantum mechanics were developed, and the beginning of our civilization's understanding of self-consciousness, Diaz conceptual action paintings, use Freud's ideas of the subconscious as the foundation of the concept underlying the paintings."
In spectacular fashion Diaz freezes one significant and perfect moment in time. Drawing on his experience in medicine the clinical clear blue could draw us in to the hospital room, and reminds us of the doctor's uniform, or the cold sterility of the scalpel. The same time it takes to make one action painting is for an Alzheimer's patient to cross the threshold between life and death. Diaz' obsession to express the significance of this one moment leads him to create over sixty paintings to come to the final piece. The final works are then juxtaposed and shown in unison to form a harmony of suspended moments, each telling a story of one crucial instant. Diaz encapsulates life at its most extreme, expressing a complexity of emotion that we can only hope to understand through truly feeling the value of the marks before us.
Claire Breukel
Director, Locust Projects
Miami, Florida, USA
