If there is one thing that characterises the work of Xavier Valls, it is how he kept faithfully to his style, given the setting and the way in which he assimilated the social and artistic turmoil of that time. Influenced by Manolo Hugué, Joaquim Sunyer and Josep Llorens i Artigas — particularly in his scenes featuring trees, fountains and gardens — and by Ràfols-Casamada and Maria Girona — in his more archaic style and more schematic figuration —, Valls was an artist who, despite his knowledge of the finest figures on the Parisian art scene (Tristan Tzara, Alberto Giacometti, María Zambrano, Luis Fernández, Balthus, Fernand Léger) let nothing induce him to modify the figurative principles that kept him on the sidelines from everything and nearly everybody.
These three watercolours on paper from the early 1990s show the influence of Georges Seurat and Giorgio Morandi on the work of Valls. The three compositions are noted for the construction, statism and delicacy of poetic nuances applied smoothly to show a mysterious, nuanced light on the fringes of avant-garde art; three examples of the iconography peculiar to an artist interested in rendering placid, metaphysical atmospheres through the softness of subtle brushstrokes and the paleness of a harmonious colour range.
Other works by Xavier Valls