Between Metaphysics and Surrealism can be resolved the aesthetic dichotomy of Morales, a solid painter whose technique and virtuosity shine in canvases of refined lyricism. Between the reality that surrogates the laws of the visible to delve into and witness the abyss within us (Surrealism), and the reality itself that is not contained within the limits of what we see but transcends them by landing elsewhere (Metaphysics). The breadth of the view of our intellect in Morales’ works is far greater than the breadth of the view of our eyes. At first glance the painted reality recalls that which we know from our experience, but this is removed from the narrow present and brought back to a suspended time. Everywhere the most absolute silence, the silence that recalls the immense space of earth, sky and the human mind. Morales’ research tells of time, memory and a present that changes every day (…)
Clouds are understood as entities in the process of becoming, capable of transforming and redesigning themselves to the bitter end, as are forests and nature with their eternal change. It is the relationship between natural and human change that interests Ernesto’s research, and within these inner and psychological territories, everything is fluid, nothing is still nor permanent (…)Morales’ shifting, surreal and metaphysical clouds, allegories of conscious meditative methods, suggest, rather than controlling thought, observing it from the outside. Nature for Morales itself represents a time, something that can change form and transform into something else. Hence the possibility of evolution, a luminous prospect of change.
Morales’ works, ancient in technique but not in soul, and herein lies an additional value, fulfill the artist’s desire to return to feeling the magnetic force of nature, in fact his primary source of inspiration, so much so that he inserts it within the pigments themselves.
In the last years of research and work, many have been the insights that have generated luminous changes in Ernesto Morales’ research. Such is the case with Big Cloud, an unprecedented and evolving series of Clouds, in which the familiar subject is presented up close, deepened in detail. The huge enlargement of the cloud takes us inside it. We are unsure of the proportions relative to it, the canvas excludes any spatial reference, and the sense of size is obliterated. The eye thus gathers its impressions through an analytical process, focusing on a different area each time in slowed time.
Calm contemplation: only this allows one to plunge deeper into the suspended and timeless dimension that Morales’ works once again give.
The advancement in Ernesto’s later years extends beyond the clouds: the Cosmos.
Looking beyond the clouds, always looking upward, but this time with the scientific help of the most precise photographs taken and granted by Nasa, boundless universes have been generated on the canvases. Looking at real snapshots of distant worlds is certainly exciting; recreating and painting them is the method Morales uses to analyze them in every microscopic part and to experience them through the galactic slowing of time.
It is a process of introspection.
He makes billions of brilliant stars using brushes composed of one and only one very fine hair. He thus offers us a chance to look out over the infinite depths of the space around us.
Ernesto Morales as a scientists, using yes different tools but with purposes not so poetically distant, explores the real marvelousness of space and makes it accessible to us. The Cosmo works propose in a painted version one of the most amazing experiences to be experienced with the human eyes and mind.
