In the 1980s, several trends took a renewed interest in figuration and expressiveness in art, drawing on the formal language of early twentieth-century German Expressionism and moving away from the Conceptual and Minimal art of the previous two decades. Majorcan artist Miquel Barceló is one of the best exponents of this return to painting, producing works where matter is used to form the images. In Flood (1990), this apocalyptic theme so frequently depicted in the history of art is presented as a gray, melancholy landscape created by making cuts in the surface and applying an abundance of matter. Barceló wanted to reflect on the liquid nature of paint and the possibility of using it metaphorically to capture time.