Series of Writings

Carmen Calvo demonstrated the widest selection of her series Writings (Escrituras) in an exhibition which could be viewed in 1990 in the Carmen Centre of the Valencian Institute of Modern Art. Here a collection of works were brought together which included productions from 1980–1984 under this title. This example is a pictorial composition with superimposed clay elements. The surface of the canvas against a yellow background includes different elements alluding to musical iconography: in the upper section is a quasigeometric, brown-colored shape which is curved on top, resembling the body of a stringed instrument. A clear-colored square has been placed over it, with staff lines and a blue rectangle with superimposed ceramic elements acting as musical notes along the staff lines and accompanied by different painted symbols. Further on, placed diagonally and reaching the lower part of the composition is an elongated quasirectangular shape resembling the arm and frets of the musical instrument, located on top of another staff with colored geometric symbols. A third staff with ceramic notes is situated at a low angle on the right-hand side of the composition. The piece evokes music: clay fragments which act as colored musical notes and a lined background acting as an invented staff make up this piece. It exudes a certain Kandinsky nostalgia passed through a constructive filter, where a lyrical adage harmoniously coexists with the archeologist aspect of the painting, which seems to catalogue the rest of its invented vocabulary through conscious archiving. The debris selected by Calvo for her peculiar writing is always filtered by the artist's own light: writing remnants, photographs, hair, ceramic fragments, always elements which she seems to have a passion for—living elements placed with the wise chaos that definitively rules over the real world.