Pablo Arrázola Colombia, b. 1991

THE ROLE OF PAPER; THE WORK OF PABLO ARRÁZOLA
By Natalia Vega
Art historian and critic

During the last few decades, the boundaries of what drawing is and can mean have expanded considerably. The young Colombian artist Pablo Arrázola (Bogotá, Colombia, 1991) participates in this development by juxtaposing two modes of language in dialogue: the traditional figurative mode, characteristic of descriptive and realistic representation -limited to the use of the most basic and traditional tools- and the innovative, experimental and abstract mode in which paper is manipulated with a wide number of tools. Arrázola engages with the paper-formally and significantly activating it-by applying various actions of mark-making such as cutting, tearing, scratching, scraping, and rubbing. These actions produce a wide range of elements -such as clean and straight lines, irregular lines, textures, and reliefs-that transform the white paper, which traditionally had been considered solely as support, into a field of action. These interventions result in an array of features that expand the limits of the language and feature characteristics belonging to varied media such as drawing, painting, engraving, and sculptural bas-relief. By manipulating paper as a tactile material and not using it strictly as a surface, he introduces the physical reality of the third dimension and the imaginary reality of an inhabited environmental space.

Drawing has been used by many contemporary artists to explore issues related to various constructions of identity; in this case, the depicted children do not constitute specific or real portraits but, rather, generic representations which help the artist explore the mostly neglected topic of childhood in art, and to address the conceptualization of this stage of life in consonance with current interests within social and cultural studies. In antiquity, the status of childhood was similar to that of women and slaves, discriminated against, and treated as minorities. In subsequent periods children were portrayed in art as miniature adults, going through a preparatory stage that ought to be accelerated. Recently, the intrinsic importance of their experiences, cognitive development, and ability of creative agency have been recognized.

In Arrázola's work the depicted children manifest themselves not only as independent and complete beings, but also invoke-through the traces or marks that each character leaves in the environment they inhabit-the ordering interaction of the world and the transformation of space characteristic of human beings at any age. The paper materializes the metaphor of the blank sheet of paper alluding to the potential of life itself. It also constitutes the field of action of homo ludens, the man who plays, creating an equivalence between art and life where the children represented fulfill an alter ego function in the performing of the artist's actions. The various strategies of drawing Arrázola employs simultaneously lead us to multiple levels of signification alluding to childhood, the practice of art, the perception of the viewer, and additionally manifests that life itself is-like paper-a field for exploratory action and constant re-creation.

December, 2021