CAMILO RIVAS VALENZUELA
Zapopan Jalisco, 1982
In alternate language is how the work of Camilo Rivas is presented to us. Wittgenstein said: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." This is where the richness of his world and the inexhaustibility of his expression come to Camilo: from his ability to create languages.
Creator of pieces and creator of languages, he communicates his wisdom to us without gossip. Camilo gets to the point! Where he comes from and where he goes is not as important as where he takes us. With his wise tongue he tells us like this, with a serene voice and sometimes in a low voice, that life is not only what we see and what we see and what we think, but it is also what we hide and what we ignore ... that even it is more than we feel; that life is also what we imagine and what we assume, what we do not know and even what we invent.
His persuasive verbosity and his grace in speaking are transferred into sculpture, drawing and painting. The composed and recomposed pieces of him are the result of the expression in his own language free of vain pretensions, oblivious to the superb gesture of originality, generated, recreated and full of reflections.
Looking and thinking come from his hand, from his master hand; observing and feeling come from the heart, from his heart, from his desecrated heart… Seeing and understanding come from his mind. A lavish and fruitful mind that combines the happiness and pleasure of being, with the pure beauty of being. That plays with meanings and gives us wise interpretations. That it uses the senses and makes us sensitive and that it is thoughtful and more than thinking, it makes us thinkers.
In his work we will find, not by searching, but by his talent to show, the real meaning of the relationship between matter and spirit. Each one of his pieces has in itself the body and the soul, the visible and the invisible, the question and the answer. Being, doing, feeling, dwelling and reflecting without stopping to deepen are the constants of Camilo's work, which more than inspiration, denote dedication.
On the path of his reflections we pass from the vain to the vainglorious, from the hunger for the flesh to the satiety of the ascetic, from the shameful to the glorious. There, they reveal themselves curious and anxious, the merriment diluted in sensuality, the carnality tanned in subtlety and the venereal appetite satiated in eroticism.
He has the ability to speak with his hands and to argue with his pieces, his speech is splendid and elaborately simple, polysemic and easy to read. His work appears to us full, simple, admirable, fragile, marvelous and serenely understandable, so subtle that we cannot help but feel astonished by the new meaning that he has revealed to us thanks to his soft expressive plastic rhetoric.
Juan Carlos Fonseca López
En lenguaje alterno es como se nos presenta la obra de Camilo Rivas. Wittgenstein dijo: “ Los limites de mi lenguaje son los límites de mi mundo”. De aquí es donde le viene a Camilo la riqueza de su mundo y lo inagotable de su expresión: de su capacidad de crear lenguajes.
Creador de piezas y creador de lenguajes, nos comunica su sabiduría sin habladuría. ¡Camilo a lo que va! De dónde viene y a dónde va no es tan importante como el a dónde nos lleva. Con su sabia labia nos cuenta así, con voz serena y a veces en voz baja, que la vida no sólo es lo que vemos y lo que pensamos, si no que también es lo que ocultamos y lo que ignoramos… que incluso es más de lo que sentimos; que la vida también es lo que imaginamos y lo que suponemos, lo que desconocemos y hasta lo que inventamos.
Su verbosidad persuasiva y su gracia en el hablar son trasladados a la escultura, al dibujo y a la despintura. Sus piezas compuestas y recompuestas son el resultado de la expresión en su propio lenguaje libre de pretensiones vanidosas, ajeno al gesto soberbio de la originalidad, engendrado, recreado y de reflexiones colmado.
Mirar y pensar vienen de la mano, de su mano maestra; observar y sentir vienen del corazón, de su corazón profanado … Ver y comprender vienen de su mente. Mente pródiga y fecunda que conjuga la dicha y el placer del ser, con la belleza pura del estar. Que juega con los significados y nos entrega sabias interpretaciones. Que usa los sentidos y nos hace sensibles y que india en cavilaciones y más que pensantes nos hace pensadores.
En su obra encontraremos no por buscar, si no por su talento para mostrar, el significado real de la relación entre materia y espíritu. Cada una de sus piezas posee en sí misma el cuerpo y el alma, lo visible y lo invisible, la pregunta y la respuesta. El ser, el hacer, el estar, el sentir, el habitar y el reflexionar sin parar hasta profundizar son las constantes de la obra de Camilo, que más que inspiración, denotan dedicación.
Por el sendero de sus reflexiones pasamos de lo vano a la vanagloria, del hambre de la carne a la saciedad del asceta, de lo vergonzoso a lo glorioso. Ahí se develan, curiosas y ansiosas, la cachondez diluida en sensualidad, la carnalidad curtida en sutileza y el apetito venéreo saciado en erotismo.
Él tiene la capacidad de hablar con sus manos y de argumentar con sus piezas, su discurso es esplendoroso y elaboradamente sencillo, polisémico y de fácil lectura. Su obra se nos aparece plena, sencilla, admirable, frágil, maravillosa y serenamente comprensible, tan sutil que no podemos evitar sentirnos asombrados por el nuevo significado que nos ha revelado gracias a su suave retórica plástica expresiva.
Juan Carlos Fonseca López