Walking Lines, chapter 13 from The Works - A journey in seeing.

The Bull Becomes Landscape

There was one small painting I made that I did not understand for many years.

Two dark figures stood opposite each other. Between them appeared a red presence.

At the time I did not think of it as an important work. It felt more like a note in a sketchbook than a finished painting.

Years later I encountered Federico García Lorca's writings on duende.

Only then did I recognize what I had been painting. The image was not about two people.

It was about the invisible force that appears when opposing energies truly meet.

The bull had opened that door.

From that moment on I became less interested in painting the animal itself.

I wanted to paint its movement. Its weight. Its breath. Its silence.

The body slowly dissolved into landscape.

The mountain became the back of the bull.

The horizon became a spine.

The horn became a line.

Without realizing it, I had begun another journey.

The paintings became lighter.

The forms disappeared.

The line remained.

And the line kept walking.