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Many years ago, when I was starting out as a journalist, the

Booker-Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri told me something

I’ve never forgotten. There are two kinds of writers, he

said, those who mine a shallow stream of consciousness and

produce work that is instantly gratifying and immediately

forgettable; and those whose writing emerges from the mulch

of a lifetime’s experience to deliver something original and

profound. These, he said, are the great writers. And it applies

equally to artists.

Good artists do more than make you look: they make you

think. Like Okri ’s writers, they are not about fame or money,

nor do they pursue the vagaries of fashion. Rather they dig

deep inside themselves to produce work that resonates, not

only with us now, but also with future generations. One such

artist is Pedro Paricio.

In the time I have known Paricio, I have seen his work grow

and develop through three exhibitions: Master Painters (2011),

Diary of an Artist and Other Stories (2012) and Shaman (2014).

It has been a pleasure to see him fulfil his promise as one of

100 New Artists chosen by Francesca Gavin to emerge as an

authoritative voice in modern art.2

This new exhibition Dreams is not only Paricio’s fourth with

Halcyon Gallery, it also marks the fifth anniversary since he

became their youngest signing, and comes hot on the heels of

last year’s retrospective, Elogio de la Pintura (2014–2015), at the

Tenerifie Espacio de las Artes.

Just as Shaman was a leap forward in confidence and maturity

from Diary of an Artist and Other Stories, so Dreams is both a

progression and departure from Shaman: and Paricio interprets

this theme widely. If in Shaman he was introspective, in Dreams

he is outward looking. He has turned his mirror round, to train

its gaze on us.

At a time of global uncertainty and mass migration, this new

body of work is as much about our common humanity as it is

about freedom of the individual. This is Paricio’s most political

series to date and his darkest: subjects include war, gangs and

the current refugee crisis. Some of the pieces such as Realpolitik

(p. 44) and Youth (p. 28) are almost sinister, but humour and

optimism bring them back from the edge. In Bonnie & Clyde

(p. 32) all the dreams of freedom you could ever wish for are

captured in the clenched fists guiding the machine gun. However

you feel about Paricio’s work, you will never be indifferent to it.

‘Dreams are not only what we inhabit when we sleep,’ he says

when we discuss this new exhibition, ‘they are fantasies and

desires and fears, both of what we are hopeful for and what we

are oblivious to. Though dreams are subconscious, they are also

a ref lection of consciousness.’

The majority of pieces in this exhibition are, as you would expect,

acrylic on linen or, in the breakout series Particles, a mix of

acrylic on linen and canvas. Painted mirrors and his first three-

dimensional kaleidoscopic sculpture Pollux inspired by Dürer’s

The Philosopher’s Stone point to an exciting new direction.

Dreams is the work of a more open, relaxed, Paricio – a man

who is comfortable in his own skin. He is back in Tenerife

after two years living and working in London and has set up

a new studio in the north of the island. Whereas before he

painted in artificial light, he is now using natural light and

the windows, once closed, are wide open. Is it a cliché to say

that to enter an artist’s studio, is to enter his mind? Not in this

case. Paricio’s studio is an Aladdin’s Cave of magazine articles,

puppets, bric-à-brac, found items, pictures, books and what he

calls his Portobello objects, curios from the famous market.

They are the touchstones that stimulate his mind when he’s

working late into the night of a twelve-hour day with only a

cigar and his music for company.

Paricio’s appearance is also symbolic of his work: each item of

clothing is chosen with care and for a reason. In this new phase,

the uniform of jacket, hat and tie has been replaced by white

T-shirt and jeans and he has let his curly fair hair grow out. The

hat, which features in so many of his paintings, was abandoned

after a nightmare in which he understood it was time to move

on with his art. The new Paricio appears on the shoulders of the

old in Builders (p. 10) and in Analogic Man (p. 48) where he is

strumming his guitar.

‘When I change, my art changes,’ he says. ‘I change to keep

my art alive. Artists that keep going the same for forty years, I

don’t like that, I like to try different things. This new series is

different but the same. All I have learned in the last ten years, I

have put in.’

Introductionby Caroline Jowett

Art is not about being famous. Art is about freedom, human freedom... but to f ind freedom for others you must f irst free yourself. An artist must follow his dreams and feelings and not what is trendy or topical . Art is not a competition with other artists, it is not a race.1

Pedro Paricio, June 2016

He celebrates this freedom in two paintings: Mount Neriton

(p. 24) and Lazarus (p. 18), perhaps the two most personal

pieces in the exhibition. Neriton, according to Homer’s Iliad is

the mountain dominating Odysseus’s homeland, Ithaca. If there

are parallels between Tenerife and Ithaca, then this is a painting

about homecoming.

Paricio is ‘a big, big puzzle with a lot of pieces’, and, as he

continues to grapple with these, he needs only the simple things

in life: time, freedom, nature and, most importantly, family. His

art comes from so deep inside him that not even he can always

see what he’s drawn on to make it. I have a vision in my mind of

Paricio f loating high among clouds representing his ideas and

the artists he admires. A ribbon tied round his ankle snakes

down to the ground where he is anchored by his partner Elena

and son Theo. He is able to take voyages into his imagination

because they are always there to guide him home.

Lazarus is probably the most telling piece in the exhibition.

A dead body, (Paricio?), lies on a bier under a shroud. A red-

haired woman (Elena?) and a small child (Theo?) look on.

‘Some people have one life,’ he says, ‘a linear life. Others are

reborn many times in many incarnations.’ The catalyst to

rebirth is the child.

Put like that, Lazarus is not about death, it’s about awakening

and, in fact, the shroud is open where the feet should be,

suggesting the spirit is already free, rising like a phoenix ablaze

with hope and light.

Paricio’s inspiration has a lways come from a broad spectrum:

other artists , of course, books, music, f i lm. He is terribly

affected by the news, as is evident in works such as Promised

Land, Realpolitik and Youth. His current reading is sociolog y

and psycholog y, but he hasn’t lost his love of history – of

man and of art. Dreams is layered with references not just

to classical art, but l iterature too, drawing paral lels between

our contemporary world and classical mytholog y. On the

face of it , Promised Land (p. 14) could be Paricio and Theo

heading to the beach with a child ’s wooden horse. But the

preliminary drawings (another new development – he

does f ive or six now instead of painting straight onto the

canvas) show this is not a self-portrait. Are this father and

son travel l ing to the Promised Land or away from it? Could

they be Moses and the Israelites leaving Eg ypt or Aeneas and

his son leaving Troy? The painting is an a l legory of exodus,

one can arg ue, a comment on the current refugee crisis . The

wooden horse is significant – besieged Troy was in modern-

day Turkey after a l l . ‘Other artists make closed statements,

I want to open a debate and speak about human history – to

paint about Syria ,’ he says.

I f th is seems a stretch too fa r, then consider that Pa r icio’s

work i s deeply rooted in the cla ssica l trad it ion. Form

is impor ta nt a nd each work is str uctured precisely to

ma ke you ref lect , a s good a r t shou ld do. Shaman wa s

cha racter ised by f lat backg rounds a nd his sig nature

ka leidoscopic geometr y a nd whi le they ’re st i l l there , he i s

now more play f u l , more pa interly.

The blurred kaleidoscope effect he began to develop more than

two years ago now glows like embers in the segmented trunk of

the elephant The Wise (p. 68). It is one of the first of the new

series and therefore the most connected to Shaman.

‘A new narrative phase is coming,’ he explains. ‘Shaman was the

culmination of a previous style in all senses (mysticism, hat, f lat

perfection). I’m now exploring new paths but not forgetting

where I came from; there is a clear break but also continuity,

because art is always a break and a continuity at the same time.’

Although sometimes his work, as in his tribute After Francis

Bacon (2009), could be said to have the Pop aesthetic, he rejects

this label. Au fond he has the intellect and skill of a classical

artist; each painting draws on the experience of his lifetime,

which is why he is always moving forward. If you look closely,

the inf luences of Caravaggio, Velázquez, Picasso, Bacon, and

others are evident, but his magpie’s eye is forever seeking out

Pedro Paricio, a study for Promised Land, 2015. Mixed media on paper, 41.3 x 57.2 cm

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Artist's Studio, Tenerife, Spain

new narratives and new techniques. It is these aspects that keep

his work so fresh.

Two names are key this time round. The masters of still-life

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1799) and Italian Giorgio

Morandi (1890–1964).

It’s easy to see why Paricio’s drawn to the former: ‘Who said one paints

with colours?’ Chardin once asked. ‘One employs colours, but one

paints with feeling.’ Alongside the Frenchman’s sharp reds and glowing

yellows is a more muted palette, which he draws on for tonal variation.

Couple that with the strong form and subtle colour gradations of

Giorgio Morandi, and you have the technical revolution of Dreams.

Acrylic, Paricio’s chosen medium, is difficult to work as it doesn’t have

the malleability of oil and dries quickly, nevertheless he has pushed his

paint to achieve the exquisitely subtle fading of Promised Land and the

impasto of Mount Neriton’s bubble-gum-pink snowcap.

New earthy colours are in the khaki background of Bonnie &

Clyde, for example, or the grey of Lazarus’s shroud. Like the reds,

yellows and oranges of Paricio’s scintillating geometry these are

also the colours of Tenerife.

There are many ways to tell your story, art is just one of those

ways. Paricio does not justify or explain his work, he sees it

as a three-way conversation and expects it to play a full part

alongside the artist and the viewer. In his clever, insightful way

he is inviting us to ref lect on ourselves and our dreams.

1 Pedro Paricio in an interview with Caroline Jowett, June 2016.

2 Francesca Gavin, 100 New Artists. Laurence King, 2011.

Caroline Jowett is an author, journalist and critic specialising in

the arts and literature. She is the former Arts and Literary Editor

of the Daily Express and is currently working on a novel set in late-

eighteenth century London.