Why I like Joan Cortés

I like Joan Cortés because he is an artist who doesn't need to speak loudly to be heard. At a time when art often seems to compete for attention at any cost, he continues to work with discretion, with an honesty that is not a strategy or a pose, but a way of being. Those who know him know that the man and the artist share attributes such as serenity, coherence, neatness, and fidelity to what he believes in.

His exhibition The Temptation of Forms, at the 6A gallery and workshop in Palma, is a good demonstration of this way of understanding the creative act. There are no artifices. There are no effects. Instead, there are more than forty years of work condensed into pieces that reach us with disarming naturalness. But the apparent simplicity is deceptive. Behind each volume there is a reflection on space, light, form, and matter.

Joan Cortés is, first and foremost, a sculptor. Volume is his language, the way he has found to relate to the world. His pieces are born from the patient accumulation of geometric forms that end up generating organic bodies, structures that seem to have grown spontaneously, as if they were living organisms. There is something primitive and at the same time contemporary in this way of his of constructing.

What interests me most about the creative moment he is experiencing is that he seems to have freed himself from any need to prove anything. He has never had much need to either. His characteristic whites continue to be present, as does the ability to turn apparently humble materials into objects of great nobility. In his current work, however, precious gilding and enamels also appear. And yet, they do not occupy the center of the narrative. They are complements. The protagonist of Cortés's work remains volume, form, the idea.

I also like the way he claims the process without turning it into a spectacle. We live surrounded by creators who feel the need to constantly show the inner workings of their work. Cortés does just the opposite. His work reaches us clean, fresh, and direct, as if there had been no effort between the initial intuition and the final result. It is very difficult to make a very complex job seem inevitable.

Joan Cortés's exhibition reserves a prominent space for his prints, which dialogue naturally with his sculptures. Although his territory is sculpture, his graphic works share the same constructive logic. Circles, accumulations, reliefs, depths, and volumes appear on paper with as much strength as simplicity. Perhaps that's why I like Joan Cortés so much. Because he continues to let himself be tempted by forms after a lifetime dedicated to pursuing them. Because he retains his curiosity. Because he hasn't surrendered to trends or haste. And because he is still capable of surprising us with simplicity, which is probably one of the most difficult forms to achieve.