06/28/06 to 08/26/06
Solo exhibition of the artist from Donostia in his hometown. The Koldo Mitxelena will host the most recent works of Bikondoa.

‘The transcend matter’, by Juan Pablo Huércanos, Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea, Donostia, 2006

“I paint for one reason only: to develop the consciousness which needs to be related to the final reality”, says Alfredo Bikondoa. The scale of this acknowledgment establishes the weight of the issue; of his acceptance of the creative reality; of the direct expression of his position in life, in contrast, perhaps, to the age of lightness1, as one of the epithets of this millennium. “In order to remain awake within the present continuum, manifesting the essential nature itself” continues the painter, who is both an agent of this process of transformation, and a tool in the creation of scenarios for that development, subsequently shared by the spectators, who observe and take upon themselves the results of that process and must also be capable of seeing themselves seized by the illusion brought by experiencing Bikondoa’s work. And yet, in the pathway of this transition, this transfer, this transcendence, might the illusion actually not be an illusion, ultimately becoming a revelation instead?

It is obvious that transformation—as an element resulting from the transcendence of the pictorial matter—is present in much of Bikondoa’s work. The artist himself makes this clear in many of the titles to his works: Gateway, Door 5, The Bridge, Return, White Door Black Door, The Step, Blue Door, Passage of the Half Light, Passage, Star Gate…. They all refer back to this return path, this path of coming and going, of approach to realities contained in the margins of the pictures, but silently expanding beyond them; containing, even, the scenarios of the intangible as an essential element. Again, we are reminded of this by the very names the artist has chosen: The Dwelling of Being, The Country of Just So, Landscape of the Six Moons, The Genius’s Abode, the Bird House. Backdrops, dwellings, countries: habitable spaces for sheltering the consciousness.

However, it is not valid to use the titles as revealing elements; that is not the point; in Bikondoa the experience comes first, then the language. This, precisely, is the antidote to one of the artist’s recurrent complaints: that we live in a world which has already been culturally configured, which we only manage to know through its names, which hide the true nature of the things. Returning to that order that priorities experience over name, these works stand as testimonies of what is possible within experience, and an awareness that there is no way of naming that which is not known. Who can guarantee the success of such an undertaking, developing the consciousness which has to be related with the final reality? We are left with the alternative of believing the artist when he claims that the goal has been achieved, that the true reality, and no other, has been untangled. But if that is true, then why go on? Only the doing remains; no other alternative appears to be capable of ensuring success. “If I have to chose between doing and not doing, I prefer to do”, Bikondoa has said on many occasions. For it is in the experience of building, of creating spaces, of spacing, that the surfaces of the essential take on their precise form. The pictures are simply the sides of a path leading towards those depths, where maybe (nothing is certain here) we will find the refuge of the intimate consciousness, of its true reflection, capable of bringing relief in its strained relationship with life. For how terrifying is a world, a stage, without backdrops or hollows, where everything is clearly lit, all too visible.