To make the work owe only itself to itself is an old ideal of modern art: to cut the ties that bind it to natural reality and let it remain, all contained within its pure limits. To take up this venerable pretension without falling into abstraction and, moreover, to do so from the photographic medium seems almost impossible. But Patrik Grijalvo has found a way to shore up the autonomy of his images. Thus weakening their link with the real referent -without losing it- and vindicating their condition as objects.

In his hands they become sculptures: pieces of a delicate and subtle volume, achieved through a serene composition of planes. The result, far from being capricious or redundant, conveys a harmonious sense of necessity. The artist does not impose any three-dimensional form on the images, but builds them from the attributes of the photographic surface. One of the peculiarities of photography is the focus, which forces to discriminate areas of variable sharpness and, therefore, to mark the different depth planes.

Patrik Grijalvo’s works are part of multiple art collections such as: Het Wilde Weten- Rotterdam, Fundación Bilbao Arte – Bilbao, Fundación Athletic Club Fundazioa, Diputación Foral de Bizkaia, Spain, among other private foundations around the world.

Jaime Cuenca