Aleix Albareda - THE SHADOWS HAD SEALED

One-of-a-kind piece, with certificate of authenticity.

DARKNES·S - Acrylics on canvas, 112 × 112 cm

In this series, the tree becomes a motif for contemplation and, at the same time, an almost architectural presence. The four paintings explore different configurations of the landscape through a restrained range of whites, grays, and blacks, where the painting matter takes on a central role.

Choosing the square format of 112 × 112 cm creates a particular relationship between the tree figure and the space. The tree ceases to function only as a natural element and becomes an autonomous, monumental body that occupies and tensions the painting surface. Its horizontal branches, its masses of foliage, and its trunks articulate the space as if they were structures drawn in the landscape.

The use of black-and-white acrylics intensifies this reading. The absence of color is not a reduction but a sharpening of focus: light, shadow, texture, and gesture take on greater importance. The quick, fragmented brushstrokes build the foliage without depicting it literally. The tree thus appears between representation and abstraction, recognizable yet subjected to a process of synthesis and transformation.

There is also a marked gestural dimension. The brushstrokes, the transparencies, the accumulations of matter, and the eroded areas of the surface reveal the process of constructing the image. The landscape does not seem so much observed as reconstructed through memory, gesture, and the physical experience of painting.

In some works, the horizontality of the canopies contrasts with the verticality of the trunks; in others, the tree concentrates into a compact mass that seems to emerge directly from the earth. This variation allows each piece to function independently, but taken together they form a visual narrative about permanence, time and resilience.

The trees depicted convey a sense of stillness, even though their surfaces are full of movement. Fragility and strength, silence and energy coexist in them.

The landscape thus becomes, in this way, an emotional space: more than representing a specific place, the works seem to speak about our relationship with nature and the need to pause our gaze before what remains.

The series finally offers a reflection on presence and imprint. The tree remains rooted while everything else—the light, the climate, the viewer’s perception, and the painting gesture itself—seems to be in transformation. That tension between the permanent and the ephemeral is one of the main poetic values of these paintings.

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