Painted between 1997 and 1998, Beyond the Haze was the first series of paintings by Guillermo de Llera. Motivated by a school teacher who dared him to paint “without thought” and to bring in the work, Guillermo soon discovered the pleasure of abstract automatic painting. It allowed to be free from the drudge of ordinary school life and expectations, and to do 2 of his favourite things at once: to listen to music and to forget himself. Beyond the Haze is about letting go and returning to the source within, not within the mind where noise tends to prevail, but within the heart where emptiness is purity. These are the resulting paintings:
Beyond the Haze: the Inside Story
One of the defining moments in my career as an artist was during that hour when my art history professor dared me to paint something deep without thinking almost 20 years ago. I had been told before that I should draw, paint and whatnot but it had never hit home before and all suggestions had met with resistance until that one moment. I went home after the challenge, which to be honest was really the necessary spark behind my first attempts, and laid down in silence, wondering how I should start. The decision could only be what it was, to go at it like a child would, and just spread the colour on the canvas without thinking consciously where they should go and how they should be matching or melting with each other. After that the only course to take was to follow personal feeling and taste, adding what could make what was before me more pleasant to the eye (to my eye), and experimenting wildly with whatever technique rose to mind.
If I didn’t like the outcome or believe the approach I was taking would succeed, then I would just bury it in paint and start again. Beyond the Haze series, I must say, was one of the most cathartic and fulfilling experiences to date because the setting and conditions were just right, therefore I hold this series so close to heart. They are living memory.
Beyond the Haze: the Underlying Flair
When things are bent out of shape; undefined; without form, they are full of potential, as in an embryonic stage, within the very source of all creative manifestations. The undefined leads to guessing, imagining,wondering. Only things that are finished are done with growing and destined to die and return to the source. The underlying flare behind Beyond the Haze was an attempt to somehow tap into that feeling that comes from being in between defined ideas, to be in that place where everything is possible and up for grabs. That place that coupled with confidence and faith is exciting, thrilling and wonderful, but that accompanied by fear is pure terror and uncertainty. Standing in between borders has always been my game for some deep-rooted reason, perhaps because I have always felt like a foreigner to where I was staying, yet it never meant that I had to confront risk with resistance, but quite the opposite. On another personal note to describe what was behind the series Beyond the Haze, and to describe precisely why I chose that very name, is the fact that I am a memory disabled individual, and therefore the past is a haze to me, and yesterday a mist. It is a quality that allows me to focus only on today and tomorrow, but a social hindrance nonetheless.
Beyond the Haze reaches beyond memory and beyond the mist, and goes deep into the subconscious, interpreting emotion as transition and shapes as colours. Since the challenge was to paint without thinking I gave myself whole-heartedly to the adventure and dived into the past; into the experiences that influenced the present at the time, painting only what arose on a subconscious level. Beyond the Haze was my introduction to the beauty within the experience of painting as a form of expression of what us deep within and cannot be grasped with reason or memory, and since then I have never let go.
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| SOLD OUT |
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SOLD  Change in the World |
SOLD Murals of Dab-Shi |
SOLD Staring at the Unknown |
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SOLD The Three Stages |
SOLD The Bull-Path |
SOLD Shell-Sea |
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SOLD ShapeShifting |
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