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Barceló was deeply influenced by his extensive travels during the ‘80s, none more so than in West Africa, where he frequently returned to live for long stints of time. Here he could reflect on the slow-paced passing of time under harsh desert conditions, blinding sunlight, and barren, rocky landscapes. Enchanted by such extremities of circumstance, he noted how ‘The light in the desert is so intense that things disappear, and the shadows are more intense than the things themselves’ (M. Barceló quoted in Miquel Barceló: Obra sobre papel 1979-1999, exh. cat., Madrid 1999, p. iv).

With its subtly variegated tones and thoughtfully textured surface, there is a dream-like tranquillity to Barceló’s works; the poetic flow of time and memory. Engaging the viewer through a powerful physicality of richly textured surface, Barceló combines oil paint with organic matter to present a visceral world that speaks to our most raw and primal instincts. The artist has been known to use rice, almonds, beans, and volcanic ash mixed with paint to create irregularities in the surface that speak to both his desert muse and the archaeological articles that make up his subject matter.