Fernando Poyatos: Color Synopsis

I couldn’t agree more: When I bought a new car, I was determined not to settle for why-bother-black, please-wash me-white, or so-sick-of-silver. I chose a bright blue sedan that makes me happy every time I look at it.

Color is the heart and soul of Fernando Poyatos’s art, and he does not stint in its use, applying it generously to express emotion and evoke feeling. Color Synopsis, Poyatos’s first solo exhibition in the United States, is on view at Old City Jewish Arts Center through September 30.

Hue is everything

“Color is the most primitive and real fact of painting,” he has said. “In my work, color is the key element. Color is the theme, the composition, the layout, the shapes, the lines. . .emerging from symbolism to appearance and to the physical fact that represents.”

With degrees in art restoration, microbiology, and art history from the University of Granada in his native Spain, Poyatos has studied color theory intellectually and in practice. Currently a professor at Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial in Quito, Ecuador, Poyatos’s academic work merges art with science, examining the effects of chemical and physical processes on works, preservation and restoration, and the perception of color.

Like Klee, possessed by color

Poyatos’s painting is inspired by the work of Paul Klee, who once confessed, “Color possesses me. I don’t have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it.” Just as Klee’s joyful abstractions call to mind a seriously talented child let loose in a Crayola factory, Poyatos’s canvases saturate the eye and the psyche, establishing a visceral connection between artist and viewer.

Colors explode from opposite sides of the long, narrow gallery. Color Synopsis is divided between abstract (2013) and representational (2015) pieces, the latter works created during Poyatos’s summer residency in Philadelphia, his first visit to the United States. Though the works are quite different, they share the same lavish palette.

Abstraction, representation

The 2013 works, hung on the left wall, are balanced and organized grids consisting of all sizes of rectangles, precisely positioned. While the size and orientation of the blocks vary greatly, each work remains within a distinct chromatic region, producing a unified visual experience. Red Series in Shape — Rule Intuition (2013) is a stimulating punchbowl of scarlet, rose, and pink held in check by a cummerbund of green. Intuitive Series II (2013) is a soothing glide path, dark strips of purple, green, and blue arranged vertically. Titles are by group, so three or four works have the same name, without so much as a letter or number to differentiate them.

On the right there are no titles, just geometric renderings of vaguely familiar sights — a diner, a church, a grand glass lobby in a downtown building — Poyatos’s postcards of his first impressions of America, throbbing with bright color.

Seeing and feeling

Whichever direction you choose, Color Synopsis is full of works to gaze at and enjoy. And maybe, as you bask in the warm yellows and cool greens, to wonder about: How does seeing affect feeling? How does Poyatos build a single visual and emotional tone from blocks of so many colors? How much is the painter, and how much the viewer? Perhaps, as Klee said, “One eye sees, the other feels.”