In the face of an increasingly cruel reality that suffocates and squeezes us, art can be expressed in two ways: that of denunciation and that of a haven of peace, both of which are completely legitimate and necessary to support all the vital weight we carry on our backs. Juan de la Rica seems to opt for the less painful path and opens a window to several scenes that, through their kindness, emanate a pleasant sensation of comfort. A hiatus amidst all the horror that is ravaging us.

Through a series of images, with the unmistakable voluptuousness that characterizes his work, he shows what has inspired such a pleasurable sensation in him that he has felt the need to capture it. Sometimes nothing saves you more from otherness, and yourself, than finding beauty where there is peace. Not only are the chosen themes pleasing but Juan de la Rica’s works are perfectly packaged. A sum of masses that are presented in total balance, both between the volumes and between these with the chromatic range used.

The characters depicted have melancholic attitudes when their backs are turned, a legacy of Romantic painting that survives in our imagination, and in other more lively ones when we see their faces, at parties, and even playing sports. We all want to be there: dancing with that woman, stroking that kitten, looking into the distance… The paintings in which the protagonists are vases and fruit bowls are a joyful study of forms, just as Cézanne did, creating the seeds of Cubism through these objects. The artists’ recreations of simple tools seduce the viewer because the essence of their creative gaze is always to be found in them.

We recognize what he shows us and we yearn for that tranquillity that his work projects. And therein lies the key. In the kindness of Juan de la Rica’s particular pop, conceived as a utopia, lies that other path of art that a priori we did not see: the denunciation that we manage to read when we reflect on the whys and wherefores of a work that insists so much on showing the good side of life, that which some have not known and for others is only a memory.

María von Touceda