Cruz Jimenez’s new work is defined by duality--the tensions between self and other, soul and body, life and death. His work, however, turns away from bold expression, favouring a more reflexive, subtle approach.
Jimenez’s compositional talent is immediately obvious. Dramatic movement and directionality within the works guides the viewer’s gaze across the surface of the painting from point to point, often in powerful, direct lines. This confidence of composition is counterbalanced by an approach to colour and form that allows for a great deal of ambiguity. Tonal variation is minimal within the works, but incredibly nuanced. This creates a background plane that seems to shift constantly, as the weight of the colour is distributed by sweeping brushstrokes and minute changes in colour values.
Against these backgrounds, Jimenez’s abstract forms are distributed in suggestive and strongly directional arrangements. Amorphous black elements, perhaps birds or leaves, seem to be swept across the surface of
It Came Swiftly, while a barely defined white form in
Hymn to the Night suggests a figure diving into water. Jimenez is reluctant to define these figures, focusing instead on maximising their compositional effectiveness.
While his focus seems firmly fixed on the formal elements of painting, Jimenez’s work rests on a strong conceptual base. There is a consistent interest in the notion of natural dichotomies and cycles: day and night, summer and winter, life and death. These are suggested in the titles of the work, which often refer to particular moments in these cycles, as well as by the images themselves, invoking suggestive forms and compositions. Jimenez’s use of contrast, however, indicates an awareness of the transitory nature of these moments, the sense that the next phase is also present, waiting to take precedence once more.
Jimenez is preoccupied with the spiritual duality of the permanent and the transient, the soul and the body. The inchoate forms of his paintings seem to flash in and out of existence from moment to moment, while his monolithic backgrounds, with their variations and abstract shapelessness, seem to suggest a more permanent, ethereal screen against which the drama of existence plays out.