They say that a painter always finds his subject. A reason, an obsessive leitmotif to depict – for a lifetime – that leads one to the ecstasy of one’s own practice, the climactic, almost alchemical point of perfection and transcendence.
It is within this meticulous and conscientious reflection that we place the Uruguayan artist José Gamarra (Tacuarembó, Uruguay, 1934). A regular on the Latin American and French art scenes¹, his craft as a painter is indelible, captivated by the pictorial topos that has led him, since the late 1960s and early 1970s², to depict the jungle landscape as a visual narrative that transcends his native country to embrace the continental myth.
It is precisely from this idea that we deduce that José Gamarra is a storyteller, a chronicler of time and its vicissitudes, an heir to Pedro Figari and Joaquín Torres García, who constitute the first generation of Uruguayan modernist artists. We perceive in his work the same mystical and poetic interpretation; that gesture of fusing action and the everyday environment, evident in Figari’s work, is masterfully adopted by Gamarra³, who takes it to its logical conclusion. However, beyond this pictorial lineage, the Tacuarembó-born artist’s painting draws on the timeless lessons of Spanish-American literature in works such as the classic *One Hundred Years of Solitude*, the literary totem that brought Gabriel García Márquez worldwide acclaim and elevated the Latin American Boom to the pantheon of world literature.
An obsessive, jungle-like motif, deeply rooted in the flow of time and intertwined with Gamarra’s symbolist language (evident in his characters, animals and machines), underlies a slow and meticulous approach to his work, in the dual perspective of viewer and creator. His painting does not merely seek to capture an inert reality: it is capable of redefining it, returning it to its original place of origin – following the undeniable imperialist struggles that displaced Yemanyá in favour of a Caucasian Virgin – and reclaiming the power of legends, myths, flavours and the guava. It is the jungle that envelops, in a blend of mystery and mysticism, the true identity celebrated by the Uruguayan artist.
As we approach his paintings (perhaps with a merely superficial gaze), we rediscover a lost paradise in the naïve style, where Gamarra’s artistic execution glides between the bucolic, arcane silence, subtle touches of playful humour, a clear political stance and the bestowal of a gift upon the viewer: the belief that the viewer is capable of discovering a land that is, ultimately, Gamarra’s intimate and personal homeland.
With a body of work that draws deeply on the visceral, environmentalism and dreams, José Gamarra envelops us in his mist – almost cinematic, like an ancient veil – lulling us into an archaic, liturgical and chimerical tale in which we feel the caress of the sun and the breath of the moon.
Lucía Gómez Lison
Art historian and philologist.
Director of SIROCO MAG, and Spanish editor.
1 José Gamarra has been living in Paris for more than six decades.
2 Although his career began back in the 1940s.
3 As highlighted by the writer and critic Edward Lucie-Smith in the monograph published by Heber Perdigon on the work of José Gamarra in 2021.
