Elmar Rojas (1937-2018), Attributed - The Velázquez Labyrinth

PAIR OF SURREALIST COLLAGES IN A VELÁ ZQUEZ-INSPIRED KEY

Collage and mixed media on canvas
Atributed to Elmar Rojas (1937-2018)
Hispano-American School of the second half of the 20th century

Technique: collage and mixed media on canvas
Presentation: framed
Measurements of each work: 58 x 48 cm with frame / 50 x 40 cm the work

1. LOT IDENTIFICATION
1.1 Nature of the group

A formidable pair of compositions on canvas is presented, conceived in a mixed language and clearly articulated as an intellectual, symbolic, and visually striking diptych. They are two experimental pieces, attributed to Elmar Rojas, whose reading sits at a particularly suggestive crossroads between historical memory, cultural appropriation, a surrealizing impulse, and contemporary material freedom.

1.2 Uniqueness of the lot

This is not a conventional decorative ensemble, but a dense, imaginative, and deeply personal dialogue. Both works explicitly reference the Velázquez universe, but do so from a contemporary, fragmentary, and almost visionary sensibility, where the past appears reconfigured as an enigma, a mental labyrinth, and a cultural resonance.

1.3 Information inscribed on the works

One of the great attractions of the lot lies in the abundant handwritten information on the back, where titles and direct references to the conceptual content of the pieces appear. This circumstance adds a very relevant documentary value, as it reinforces the narrative and programmatic intention of the set and allows a better understanding of its dimension as a series or reflective cycle.

2. ARTISTIC DESCRIPTION
2.1 First work

The first composition is organized around an ascending, almost tectonic structure, resolved through a language of matter, swirls, and green, gold, and earthy impasto. At its center emerges a small cut-out figure and, in the lower area, a dog that immediately recalls Velázquez’s imaginarium and courtly realm, reinterpreted here as a vestige, emblem, or guardian of displaced memory.

The overall atmosphere has something ceremonial and mysterious. The space seems to open like a mental grotto or a treasure chamber transfigured by painting. The text adhered to the lower zone — related to Velázquez’s workshop and the royal treasure chamber — turns the image into a kind of archaeological vision of power and history.

2.2 Second work

The second piece is more dizzying, more dynamic, and more openly labyrinthine. The surface becomes a whirlwind of blues, greens, whites, and violets cut by oblique bursts, into which a moving figure of strong dramatic tension is inserted. In the lower zone appears another nucleus of collage with inscriptions and small iconographic elements, as if the painting refused to be only a picture and demanded reading, deciphering, reconstruction.

Here the language becomes even freer, almost cosmic. The reference to the “labyrinth of Velázquez” should not be understood only as a title, but as a key of access: the work truly functions as a visual labyrinth where art history, dream, fragment, quotation, and material energy merge into a single current.

2.3 Dialogue between both

Seen together, both works display an extraordinarily fertile relationship. The first seems to speak of the enclosure, the archive, the secret place where the mystery is kept. The second embodies the inner movement of that mystery, its expansion, its dislocation, its flight toward a space no longer historical but psychic. One refers to the chamber; the other to the labyrinth. One condenses; the other overflows.

That balance between symbolic containment and visionary explosion gives the lot an intensity very rarely found. It is a diptych with true curatorial vocation, capable of sustaining a cultured reading while also delivering an immediate visual impact.

3. STYLE, TECHNIQUE, AND SENSIBILITY
3.1 Plastic language

These works participate in a fully contemporary language where collage is not used as a decorative resource but as an instrument of visual thought. Fragments, inscriptions, quotes, and figurative elements coexist with impulsive painting, materially rich and emotionally open. The result is a living surface, complex and charged with strata of meaning.

3.2 Velázquez reference and surrealist drift

The mention of Velázquez is central, but it does not appear from copying nor from academic reverence. It appears from poetic rereading. These compositions do not illustrate Velázquez: they traverse him. They turn him into territory of exploration. The surrealist spirit of the group resides precisely in that ability to transfer tradition into a dream logic, displacement, symbolic intrusion, and fragmented memory.

3.3 Matter, gesture, and energy

The painting possesses physical force. There are broad sweeps, decisive impastos, spatula marks, and a very free sense of pictorial space. Matter is not a finish: it is a voice. In it one perceives a will of intensity, movement, and transfiguration. That energy makes the works not only to be looked at but to be felt.

3.4 Curatorial and contemporary value

This is a lot especially valuable for those seeking pieces with personality, discourse, and presence. They are not complacent works. They are works with inner world. And precisely for this reason they may occupy a very special place in a collection that values the cross between art history, contemporary imagination, and the poetics of the fragment.

4. STATE OF PRESERVATION
4.1 General state

The set presents a very powerful visual presence and a fully satisfying aesthetic reading.

4.2 Presentation

The works are offered framed, with a sober presentation that allows focusing attention on the material and conceptual intensity of the compositions.

4.3 Observations

You can notice signs, irregularities, or peculiarities typical of the technique used, the creative process, the passage of time, or the material life of the pieces, in line with the experimental nature of the lot and visible in the photographs. The handwritten information on the reverse is part of its fundamental interest.

5. GUARANTEE AND TRANSPARENCY
5.1 Honest description

This cataloging has been drafted from direct observation of the provided images, attending to technique, format, inscriptions, stylistic character, and the curatorial strength of the set.

5.2 Importance of the photographs

The photographs are an essential part of the description and allow appreciating matter, collage, front inscriptions, handwritten reverses, composition, frame, and general state.

5.3 Attribution

The works are presented as attributed to Elmar Rojas, according to the information provided and the visible references in the lot. As is customary for this type of ensemble, the attribution should be understood within the framework of honest and prudent cataloging.

5.4 Packing and shipping

The works will be packaged with special care, paying attention to both the protection of the painted surface and the stability of the frame, to ensure safe receipt.

6. COLLECTING OPPORTUNITY
6.1 Interest of the lot

This diptych gathers very rare qualities: balanced format, strong visual personality, abundant conceptual content, explicit historical references, informative reverses, and a plastic energy of great intensity.

6.2 For collection or cultivated interior design

It is an ideal lot for collectors of contemporary art, for sophisticated interiors, or for spaces where a work is valued that not only decorates but provokes questions, associations, and conversation.

6.3 Curatorial closure

There are works that represent the world, and there are others that rewrite it. This pair belongs to the latter. In them, Velázquez ceases to be only a memory of the great Golden Age and becomes dream material, a burning vestige, mental architecture, and wandering symbol. Everything seems displaced, but nothing is arbitrary. Everything seems free, but everything breathes a very singular poetic intelligence. It is a strange, cultivated, vibrant, and deeply magnetic diptych: one of those sets that do not exhaust themselves in a single glance, because every new observation opens another door within the labyrinth.