Essay by Juan Domínguez Lasierra for Vicente Pascual 20 FRAGMENTOS exhibition catalogue.
Traveling show through Guadalajara, Zaragoza, Logroño and Valencia, Spain, 1996/1997

To face the present artistic work of Vicente Pascual is not like jumping in the void, although such a thought could be conceived at first glance, but it would be superficial. Because these geometries or the geometric fragments that Pascual proposes to us, are but the continuation of his landscapes that years before seduced us with their harmony full of internal tension. Given that those landscapes were geometries that came from natural forms, these new geometries are essentialized expressions of nature. The landscape expressed as geometry; then geometry expressed as landscape.

We have spoken of harmony and tension. We could speak of serenity and life, both ofitheseiwere united and inseparable, inihis old landscapes, in which the static andithe dynamic were interchangeable inithe background and in the foreground, in an alternance that depended only in the vital moment of the painter. Here we can continue the same discourse because his geometry, apparently static, and formalized, is but the mere canvas, the weft that permits the most vital warp. Far from being cold and sterile, are these geometries, having nothing to do with rigidity or rule. Once again we find ourselves in an intrinsic equilibrium between harmony and tension, between serenity and life, but above all we find ourselves in potential vitality. A vitality that tries to brake loose from the the weft to make more real, more habitable the ultimate expression of the artist: serenity, the submission of his own nature to the nature he belongs to

In his work there is something tantric in the symmetrical forms that compose its fragments. But it is this very fragmentation, and the rebellion hidden in each brush stroke, that differentiates his icons from the other oriental serenity made of rituals and formulas. Among the points shared between these two perspectives is the idea of Center and Totality, which inspire all his compositions. To "understand" and to situate oneself in one of Pascual's works, it is not necessary to take in the whole painting. In reality, it's totality would span the Universe, for each fragment of his work symbolizes the Whole. As in a tantra the the whole is present in the part, but here the part is by it's own configuration an art object. From the preceding statement arises the necessity to cut the paper in a random way, and in fragments.

Submission to Nature and the the weft that makes us one. Unity with our surroundings, but also freedom to express ourselves as differentiated men within Nature, giving with our warp the ultimate direction to our existence. The work of Vicente Pascual is one of profound existential connotations.

Juan Domínguez Lasierra
Zaragoza, 1996