Berta Cáccamo spent 1992 and 1993 in Rome under a grant from the Spanish Academy. This was a change of scenario for her after living in Paris since 1989. Her years in Paris and her travels to other European countries enabled her to consolidate a pictorial style that was unusually mature for such a young artist. These were years of great activity which resulted in a number of medium- and large-format pictures and in experiments with different textiles as backings, such as canvas, sacking and other reusable materials. Above all that activity can be seen in her tirelessly producing drawings, inks and water colours on paper. She regarded this as entirely independent of her output in terms of paintings. Her notebooks and sketch pads from that period evidence not just how intensely she was working but also how much time she spent studying and reflecting on the essential principles of painting.

QNJ is perhaps the most important painting to emerge from her time in Rome. As in her acrylic paintings and the works on paper produced in Paris, she uses blacks, greys and whites in a succession of large, ductile patches which become more and more organic, although they are organised along the lines of geometrical structures. The painting comprises a large, grey protuberance that stands out against a snowy white background, hinting at an augmented form that could come from the body or from nature. Like other paintings of hers from that period, there is a liquid, fluid quality to it that gives it a sort of evanescent corporeality. Berta Cáccamo's work is usually associated with the observation of nature and with the contingent quality of the elements used, but QNJ suggests that there is an equally important focus on the female body and on germination: on what has the potential to be.

Juan de Nieves