Andújar

Frank Martínez Andújar

Publications

Painter moves away from creating formula art.

By Manuel Alvarez Lezama

          Artist like Paul Klee and Joan Miró created perfect universes in their paintings: every line, every sing, every object –all suspended on the colors of every possible dream – had a specific aesthetic purpose.

          During the past few years, Frank Andújar has been trying to create a universe of his own in his paintings.

          Although Andújar’s work is clearly infuenced by Klee, Miró, Ellsworth Kely, and Puerto Rican painters Lope Max Díaz and Jaime  Romano, when I first saw it I was immediately attracted to his enigmatic and colorful canvases where any type of encounter could take place. Then I went through a period where I wondered whether this young artist had developed a successful formula and whether his paintings had become mechanical and mainly decorative.

          In Andújar’s present exhibit, at Corinne Timsit International Gallery in Old San Juan, I was surprised to see the works of a more mature and imaginative painter who is willing to experiment with color, textures, forms, and even the shape of his canvases.

          That does not mean, however, that he is free of the “decorative art” label that many of his fellow artists and some art critics pinned on his work.

          Although Andújar is quite original in his use of abstract figuration to create a personal world, and he tries to touch the viewer  through a studied use of color, he has not been able to break with a formula that was welcomed only because it was thought it would develop  into something more magical.

          This does not mean that I did not like some of his paintings.  Andújar, who graduate from the School of Plastic Arts of the Institute of Puerto Rico Culture in the ‘80s again demonstrates that he is an expert at creating interesting textures and original and intriguing forms.  The most striking aspects of Andújar’s painting is still his use of colors.

          This young painter is quite daring and is not afraid to shock us with his magentas, his purples, and pinks.

          Paintings like “El pez nuestro de cada día,” “Contabajista,” and “Péndulo en movimiento” show great talent.

         Paintings like “Péndulo I, II, III and IV” where the artist mixes traditional paintings with sculpture, show that Andújar is trying to escape from a rigid formula.

           On one occasion, Klee said that “art does not reproduce the visible…today we [are trying] to reveal the reality that is behind the visible.”

           I sincerely believed that Frank Andújar should take Klee’s words to heart and delve deeper into his inner world.  It would make his art more interesting and more powerful. At the young age of 30, Andújar is a good painter who is not sure where to go with his talents.  And although we can now recognize his painting anywhere, we are not really sure if that is all he wants.

          Let his next stage as an artist show his wealth of experiences as a painter and as a man.

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