Gonzalo González, born 1952 on Tenerife, is the most well-known Canarian artist of his generation. He stands in one line with the famous artists that added the Canary Islands to our history of art, such as Jorge Oramas and Oscar Dominguez, Manolo Millares and Cesar Manrique.
The human being was not always absent in the works by González. In the series "Marginalizados" his subject was isolation and suffer of human being. He draws his figures, more anonymous victims of her destiny than of political or social circumstances, with an expressionist gesture in neofigurative technique. The landscape, that one finds in his recent paintings instead of the humans, has the same anonymity because of its general character, which excludes every assignment to a special localization. It only finds his reality within the paintings.
The dominance of nature in his surroundings is reflected in his works, which link the realistic with the mystic element in great scenarios. The forces of nature break through; the paintings give the impression not of static existence, but of permanent movement. The inhospitable landscape is illuminated by fire and wasted by storm. A certain dramatic is generated by a strange mixture of melancholy and chaos, which is able to produce associations of the disappearance of civilization.
In his series "Nocturnos", black obtains a completely new quality as color of the light, which is suggestive of the traditional use of obscure colors by Velazquez and Goya, later then by Tŕpies. All shades and variations, all changes in depth and intensity, which black has to offer, are masterfully exhausted. The space of the night obtains nearly baroque quality.
