“THE WELCOME”. JOSE LUIS SERZO

 

THEWELCOME: adj.s. mf, pl-sing. elusive, polymorphic, simultaneous and expansive being-character, unequivocally welcome. Difficult to locate and determine a place or date, number and gender; that appears where it is necessary and unexpected. It has the ability to transmute the negative into a positive, and therefore it is decisive in the life of those who experience it. // 2. Set of circumstances or gifts that pervade our world to improve it in a surprising way and not always immediately understood. // 3. The Welcome moment. // expr.fam. It is said of an instant in which an understanding is reached, total, concrete or even to the same illumination. Defining moment, revealing. // 4. Chronol. It was The Welcome. // Expression to define a stage in humanity or in the life of a human being where balance, beauty, harmony, spiritual evolution and earthly wisdom prevail.// It is a thewelcome! Expression    that defines a person who brings joy, beauty, wisdom and harmony to the lives of others. // I'm like thewelcome! // expr. Fam. Which is used to define a state of balance between body, mind and spirit.

 

On the reality of the fantastic and the fantastic of reality. Flying notes on the intention of Thewelcome.
For a long time I have been trying to propose other paths through metaphor. My creative purpose is concerned with building a plausible parallel universe in itself, brimming with symbols and meanings, that finds solutions to the problems of this other side.

The fantastic hides behind the apparent, and from time to time, it appears before our eyes to remind us that we are also part of that existence that some (remember Plato) baptized as "soul of the world". We are part of that “o” many times throughout our lives.

The fantastic, then, appears when we have the ability to see the marvelous side of existence.

Throughout the history of mankind there have been real and fantastic beings (wise men, heroes, superheroes, thinkers, gods, missionaries, ascended beings, revolutionaries, enlightened people, even politicians!) who have physically and symbolically manifested many dreams or collective ideals.

Necessary beings that have helped humanity to take another step in its evolution. The world always requires these characters, who release and purge the pressure caused by collective and/or mass unconsciousness.
Today these characters are still necessary, more than ever I would say, just when there may be a greater rejection or disbelief towards them. The discredit of utopias and ideals is justified by the repeated failures of some leaders who, sometimes starting with a good idea, were blinded by the desire for power and the misuse of it.

Planet earth and all of humanity are experiencing moments of imbalance and change, of crisis. Many theories, studies and prophecies explain these current events, in different ways, but saying practically the same thing.
We live difficult times. That is, by now, something obvious.

In a drawing of mine from years ago, I rediscovered a character without a face in a third plane of the scene; he was wearing a black and white checkered jacket and was located at the end of a road coming from the mountains.
Such a character seemed to observe the main scene from silence.

Above his head, an affirmation surrounded his aura where it could be read: "I AM THEWELCOME".

For a few years now, I have been working on the inevitable persecution of that character whom I have baptized THEWELCOME (the welcome).

A being (object or moment) something elusive, polymorphic, eclectic, timeless, expected, necessary, surprising, good, transmuting, repairing, expansive, healing, nutritious, empathetic, magical... and a long etc.

I want to get closer to that character (moment or object) bearer of that "good vibes", to use a colloquial expression. A being that produces the same sensation of relief as a window to the outside, which brings fresh air and light to a dark and closed place.
A binding being of positive and constructive particles, an unmistakable being of goodness and union, growth, expansion and awareness.

For this reason, in this work, there is an open collaboration section where a random number of people send a letter describing their most personal and authentic Thewelcome; Well, I think that this character, among other things, should aspire to configure the sum of all our best wishes.

I am aware that reaching such an end is (for now) "practically" impossible. This is how, for the moment, I work in this kind of cabinet of wonders, where all the works that compose it operate like surrounding satellites in this "Planet-Sun".
I try to use the window or mirror of art to reflect and show our best part.

I defend the conscious and responsible imagination as a revolutionary engine to provoke future and better realities.
(Well, let's not forget that everything we now have and experience we have previously imagined).

Thewelcome emerges vigorously as a counterbalance to so much recalcitrant cynicism and frustrated intelligence. I believe that we all come to be "happy" in this world (understanding the word "happiness" as the result of a process where the soul finds its place). Intelligence, therefore, is a tool to find ourselves, to grow and fulfill ourselves expansively, to become what we really are.

With my work I seek that realization of the spirit. With love, humor, demand, a certain illusionism and some alchemy.
Thewelcome potentially has the ability to solve old erroneous and entrenched systems with the intrinsic strength of the new.

I am aware of the duality to which we/we belong, that in this paradigm there is no light without shadows, cold without heat, good without bad, but I also believe proposals are needed that work hard on the most positive and luminous part of this history. Especially in the world of contemporary art, brimming with self-referential, hermetic, elitist projects, when not morbid, vacuous, frivolous and with a considerable loss of direction.

I believe that any expressive discipline should use language for the union and embrace between author and spectator, beyond the condition of the latter and not the other way around, which is what usually happens. Language, on too many occasions, appears to us as an indecipherable brick that separates us precisely from the meaning or background of the work.

I advocate a language of the heart, which is the true universal binder. Perhaps "culture" was born with that intention, but it is obvious that on countless occasions it has separated us alarmingly. We should think about it.

They say that the variety is the taste, and that for tastes, the colors. I could say that, with Thewelcome and all my other series, I am betting on white: the sum of all light colors.

Jose Luis Serzo. Madrid 2005-2009