Biography
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The language of visual transfiguration of Roca Bon.
After gaining a firm command of the methods of creating Christian iconography and altarpieces and after passing through the dominant leading art movements of the 20th century, the spiritual qualities of Roca Bon’s visual language once again has gained the transfigurative strength of an icon.
Evolving towards an art of mystical space, which invites to meditation, silence, the search for spiritual reality…., the artist attempts through his language of geometric abstraction to usher us into a metaphysical realm.
Altarpieces and mural paintings forged his artistic roots.
His first teachers: His own father, the painter Fernando Roca Guillemi (awarded third prize for sketching by the City of Paris in 1913) and the altarpiece painter Jordi Aluma.
His challenge: The eternal search of both physical and metaphysical reality. His brush extracts the transcendental aspects of common things, expressing the inexpressible, painting the silence, empowering the senses, not obliging them.
His passion: Geometry, because “it is the foundation of civilization, the beginning of everything”.
“Geometry is like a calligraphy that cannot be read in a literary manner but which induces a state of serenity and relaxation conducive to knowledge”.
His originality: To embrace painting without limits in order to express the universal by capturing the timeless values.
His focus: Autobiographical painting. Genre, still lifes, urban landscapes, personal experiences giving each an ethereal breath.
The present work of Roca Bon maintains harmony, equilibrium, and order; although his palette has darkened, he continues to maintain the optimistic breath that characterizes all his paintings. Roca Bon is now immersed in a search for a perspective which creates a deep and unique metaphysical atmosphere in each composition.
Even when he paints a landscape he subjects it to his transforming alchemy. In art if one wishes to progress, the passion for nature must be controlled. A rock will remain a rock if the hand of man does not intervene.
A contemporary iconography. The foundation of the icon is geometry, therefore his present work could be defined as a contemporary iconography.
An icon appears concrete, anti romantic, plain, simple, but it hides a meaning. One must know how to decipher the mysteries it conceals. The icon’s settings always appear flat and it’s perspective non realistic but in fact it has depth. Imagery expression is neither happy nor sad, (an indispensable feature for mystical or a spiritual art); it is simply serene.
“Similarly my present paintings are neither sad nor happy. They are spaces in which nature is transfigured.”
An interactive space for the senses. Roca Bon’s paintings require no interpretation. Each viewer according to his own receptivity may perceive their concealed mysteries.
“I desire in my painting to provide space for the viewer which respects his silence, and gives him the opportunity to freely discover the painting’s beauty and the sensations it provokes beauty, like good music requires time, space, so that the hearer can grasp it and transport it to the other senses. Only this way can its vibrations affect the soul.” This is what I expect of my painting: that they release a full range of sensations in the viewer. My over-arching concern is that my work creates a space to think and meditate. A space which is habitable, in which things can be transfigured.
The metaphysical connection: Roca Bon offers his art as an instrument to mediate between the visible world and the spiritual world.
“In my work I try to express the universal, not what is particular to one culture, race or religion the eternal search of both physical and metaphysical reality is a way to recognize the creative will of man a way to the transcendental nature of men a way to reach man’s transcendental nature I extract the timeless values of the past I attempt to empower the senses, not to oblige nor lead them”.
Beauty is Hard. “To penetrate a painting, to penetrate beauty is hard,” recognizes Roca Bon. “The art being made is primarily for the senses, from the skin outwards. But beauty that is more sublime is hard to see and nowadays, since we want everything fast, there are barriers that prevent us from entering it”.
When Art is Made Timeless
“When art becomes spiritual or timeless as it has been demonstrated in the art of Mesopotamia or old Egypt, it continues to connect with contemporary artistic values an Egyptian pyramid is contemporary because it is timeless, it is not old fashioned, it doesn’t tire. Everything that has an artistic value also has a spiritual value.”
The Design Era: “The 21st century will be a century for design. Design brings harmony to man, makes him live better; homes, theatres, restaurants, are a recognition of the creativity of man”.