NOTES BLOC '

Recognizing the beauty of the ordinary requires looking with intent, hoping to find some good qualities where most see monotony. Sharing that gaze is an act of generosity from someone who alerts us to the potential hidden in everything around us.

José Ferrero plays with these factors when he uses his camera. He takes small pieces of the world and reconfigures them, creating new realities that we recognise, but not entirely. He creatively uses photographic technique to frame the most relevant part of the subject, wait for the moment when it is at its most interesting point and work the light in such a way that some facets are highlighted while others are concealed.

Is the world we are walking in the same as the one we see in these images? Entering an exhibition hall and seeing these photographs is like signing a new contract with reality. For a few minutes we agree to forget what we think we know about the world and in exchange when we leave, if we have made the most of our time, we will observe our surroundings with a little more freedom and perhaps we will ask ourselves: Is what I have seen so far more real than what the camera reveals?

Extract from The Hidden Face of Things by Nicolás Cancio “Bloc de Notas” is the most recent work. At first glance they might seem like unconnected images, however, the proposal puts emphasis on those images that are often considered of a lower category, but which the author understands as the true foundation of the work. They operate as an offering to nature, they are images with a great intuitive charge that develops during the capture, a moment in which knowledge, experience and chance are combined at the same time. The reflection comes later. The photographer constructs the image, and it is the viewer who gives it meaning: “There is no manipulation of any kind, I try to make the composition on the ground and in the laboratory process I limit myself to ordering the shades of grey so that the result is as similar as possible to the desired image. I am interested in an active observer, who does not limit himself to admiring what is in front of him, but who makes the image his own and develops it based on his own experience.” The photographs in this work are usually small in format 15x15cm or 22x22cm, which forces the viewer to get closer in order to clearly perceive the image. This also causes the perception of the image to vary considerably during the approach. “Each work by José Ferrero is a different reality with each glance that falls on it.”

In the Global portraits series, he reflects on the loss of values ​​and the loss of identity, with a series of portraits that merge into a barcode.

In them, only a small fraction of the face/identity remains. It is the alarm that warns us of the loss of identity and values, and therefore, of social behavior. Hence the suitability for the theme: “The future is in sharing.”