On 9-3-2024 this complete article on the exhibition dedicated to Rosalía was published in the newspaper Murcia Plaza. The comments of the author, Cristina Fernández, about my work are very interesting. This is the full text of the article, there is also a link to the original article.

Portraits to woo Rosalía at Babel Gallery: José Carmona exhibits his mosaics dedicated to the singer.

Cristina Fernández

Gallery babel Rosalía MURCIA


9/03/2024 -

MURCIA. Portraiture as courtship... This is what the artist Jose Carmona Ros, who dedicates an exhibition at the babel gallery in Murcia to none other than the singer Rosalia, whose changing `looks` have already become iconic images that inspire works of art. Like the ones that can be seen until March 23 at the space on Apostles Street directed by Javier Cerezo.

The exhibition Rosalía y el retrato como cortejo brings together a series of works starring the Catalan singer and composer, in which the author resorts to geometry and mosaics of images and brand logos to give shape to the character. A fragmentation that the artist uses to talk about the consumer culture, the lack of individuality and contemporary human isolation.
"Is art a courtship, a seduction, made to the spectator to bring the artist`s ideas to him?" asks the director of Babel, who points out that Carmona "thinks so" and, to prove it, "he has built his discourse through a series of portraits of one of the most seductive characters of recent years: Rosalía". To this end, the artist shows in these portraits the contemporary human being as an enigmatic sketch that becomes a labyrinth, seeking parallelism with the musical compositions of the author of Motomami and how she fuses the different genres in her songs.

Another question raised by this exhibition is whether portraits help to get to know people, to show who they are. Is the portrait a true image or is it an illusion we create to build a plot of dreams and desires? In this sense, Carmona himself has pointed out that he has not ceased to be surprised and impressed by the quality that Rosalía has for posing in front of the camera. "She is a mystery, but also the certainty, so the photographer and the camera can only document and certify the genius that the artist has, not being possible to go beyond with our intention and imagination of what she proposes, because each photo of her is a definitive portrait," says in this regard the director of the gallery.

A world of opposites

José Carmona`s portraits also show the constant struggle between chaos and order, the simple and the complex, oblivion and memory, and the collective and the individual that exists in every human being. As a result of all these contrasts, José Carmona`s portraits are at the same time clear and diffuse.

Regarding the technique used, the director of Babel points out that José Carmona resorts to "a language typical of anti-art". "He uses digital printing, rejects manual work, but his creations claim human intellectual authorship: the idea that is born in the artist`s mind as the engine of creation, making us the proposal to look at the world, not as a complexity of shapes and colors, but of meanings," he explains.

He adds that Carmona seeks intensity in his artistic execution and that his works are as penetrating as the people he portrays, because the image he obtains, be it a photograph or any other plastic interpretation, ceases to be a fact when it is produced to become an experience, an opinion. José Carmona believes that "stories, even the most common and apparently unimportant events, never end completely, but join with others, chaining them together and keeping them always alive".