New York, NY BERNARDO TORRENS Skin and Soul
Oscar Wilde, while witty, was often pithy. He wrote, “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” Bernardo Torrens comments, “Oscar Wilde was right, feelings are the key.”
In the case of his own self-portrait, Me, 4th Quarter, Torrens learned something not only of himself but of his approach to all his painting. “It was a kind of therapy for me at the moment. Going through very difficult times, I decided to look at myself as an entomologist looks at a bug. I was trying to understand me. No more, no less! I spent a good six weeks looking at me in a photo; it was frightening sometimes, it was therapeutic in others, it was difficult and easy at the same time. When I finished it I realized that that was what I’ve been doing my entire life with my work—expressing myself and letting the things flow, not fighting against them. I’ve been asked many times why I paint people or more specifically nudes. My answer has been many times ‘because I like people. I love the many different ways we are…’ But now my answer would be because I have to know me, and only through my work will I do it.”
There is an intimacy to his nudes that goes far beyond the surface. The surface itself is accomplished with airbrush, a technique that can result
in a cold, featureless surface. He comments, “If I want to paint the skin I need a tool able to re-create that surface so the airbrush seems to be a good option. If you want to create the ‘illusion’ of real skin you have to think about how that skin is built, by layers, so it has to be translucent or look like it is.” He plays down detail, explaining, “When you look at someone you don’t usually see all the small details and textures.” But the translucent layers of paint give the impression of blood flowing beneath the surface, of life and vibrancy.
He continues, “I guess my years painting from life have helped me to reach the point of reality I want to give to my works. It is certainly not only a copy of a photograph, but also put some ‘extra’ in it. That’s when the word ‘soul’ makes sense. It’s the difference that makes an image have the ‘alive’ feel.”
Models bring their bodies and moments of discovery to a painting session. In Melania III, the contemporary dancer began to stretch. “I said ‘STOP!’” he recounts. “It was her private and personal movement.” It was the perfect unplanned pose. The background is unusually painterly for his work. He had felt that the painting wasn’t working out the way he had hoped. “I began playing with the background and the table she was on,” he explains. “With my way of working I can’t ‘repaint the figures, so my only hope was the background. Finally I found that the horizontal brushstrokes where the best solution to express her moment of strength and solitude in the way I felt it.”
Skin and Soul, an exhibition of his paintings, is on view now at Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York.