Echuarren, R. S. A. M. (1941). Listen to Living [oil on canvas]. © 2008 Artists Rights Society, NY/ADGP, Paris. The Museum of Modern Art, NY., USA, Inter-American Fund.

My interpretation of this work is that Echaurren is visually describing an alien world, teeming with life. He is pointing out that humanity simply cannot imagine before-hand what alien life will look like, including their world. We as a species are reasonably sure how elements behave under a range of conditions, but his assertion that predicting with the remotest accuracy the form that other-worldly intelligent life will take is accurate in my opinion. | 

The subject is the landscape of an alien world. Its appearance is so foreign that it may be a place where our understanding of the laws of physics are changed. Echuarren is pointing out how little we as a species know, or have experienced. This is a surrealist oil painting on canvas. The primary element employed in this work is amorphous shape. Shapes are well-defined in some areas, but blended and mixed together in others, through the exquisite use of color. I believe the color strategy is a primary triad, which supports the jarring color use. Color and shape are a single force in this work. Echuarren’s strategy of employing color to create shape builds a canvas-wide texture that is characterized by delicate vibrancy. 

The establishment of plastic depth is difficult to identify formally, but cool colors populate in the “sky” (far); warm toward the bottom (near). One of the subtle effects of the color strategy is that the clash of colors support the illusion of depth. However, the treatment of detail and texture have a flattening effect. Due to the placement of denser, warmer elements in opposition of that of airier, cooler ones, an asymmetric balance is struck. The tipping point is in the lower-left quadrant. This work is dominated by organic forms, relatively pure colors and strong value contrasts. Contrasting balance is struck when gestural shapes are compared to naturalistic ones and color temperature is considered. 

Moments of stark value contrast are used across the implied horizon. Naturalistic, indistinct shapes populate the canvas, but a tangled mass of more gestural forms in the bottom-left quadrant actually contrast quite effectively. Lines of motion are implied through the what appear to be sprouting, spraying forms located in the upper-left quadrant. It’s possible our own preconceived notions of gravity, solid ground, breathable air, etc are keeping us from truly seeing what is in this work. Beyond that, the viewer seems to be standing on a surface, looking off into the distance of this foreign landscape. 

Echuarren creates an eye-catching, credible alien landscape. He uses the minimal amount of our innate assumptions to create the field of a sky, ground and horizon line, striking near a perfect balance between lacking information and providing too much.