Paintings from the series "Stand above the ocean," displayed in the show of the same name at Galería BECH, Santiago, Chile. Mayo 2012.

The common thing between the works on this show is the use of paper as support. Some of them are paintings, but some ones are, at my gaze and without any doubts, drawings.

The relations between drawing and paper, or between painting and canvas, are so established that has gone barely invisible. Altering those relations represents undoubtedly a political choice. But don’t do it also is.

In other words, to make this paintings on paper he used images that, by way of forgetting, won on name what they lose in air.

The truth is, we’ve been painting on everything that could resist painting for a reasonable time, and the practice of painting on paper has is as old as the paper itself. I mention this just because I believe that, in this times, the meeting of painting and paper is much more significant than before, for its possibilities of lighten the works from the weight of time that painting carries with itself.

Finally, I think Gaspar Alvarez chose carefully the models for the making of this works. I believe he looked above some kind of Sargasso Sea to find the Limbo-like ones.

Extract from "Pintura sobre papel" (Painting on paper) by Rodrigo Vega, written upon the show "Permanecer de pie sobre el océano". May 2012.