Aleix Albareda - TIME HAS TAUGHT AND SO IT SEEMS

Unique piece, with certificate of authenticity.

DARKNES·S - Acrylics on canvas, 112 × 112 cm
In this series, the tree becomes a motif of contemplation and, at the same time, an almost architectural presence. The four paintings explore different configurations of the landscape through a reduced range of whites, grays, and blacks, where the painting matter takes on essential protagonism.
The choice of the square format of 112 × 112 cm generates a particular relationship between the tree figure and space. The tree stops functioning solely as a natural element to become an autonomous, monumental body that occupies and tensions the pictorial surface. Its horizontal branches, its masses of foliage and its trunks articulate space as if they were structures drawn in the landscape.
The use of acrylic in black and white intensifies this reading. The absence of color does not imply a reduction, but a concentration of the gaze: light, shadow, texture and gesture acquire greater importance. The quick and fragmented brushstrokes build the foliage without describing 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’ traces, the transparencies, the accumulations of matter and the eroded areas of the surface reveal the process of constructing the image. The landscape seems less observed than 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 in a compact mass that seems to emerge directly from the ground. This variation allows each piece to function independently, but when viewed together, they form a visual narrative about permanence, time and resilience.
The represented trees 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 an emotional space: more than representing a concrete place, the works seem to speak of our relationship with nature and of the need to slow the gaze before what remains.
The series finally offers a reflection on presence and trace. 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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