“The sky and its changes occur every day; the difference lies in contemplating them or letting them pass by.”

-Diego Benéitez

Diego Benéitez, faithful to his constant observation of the landscape, has sought to express himself in this new series by creating a subtler dimension through a vision imbued with exquisite dreamlike qualities, consistent with his poetics, yet with a therapeutic intention.

In the bays of Calma, one perceives a delicacy that acts as an antidote to counter the intoxication of reality suffered by a society overwhelmed by the unstoppable succession of images in digital media, whose origin stems from the chaotic everydayness of a convulsive world.

The artist contemplates landscapes, retains them in his retina, and transfers them onto canvas or panel, transforming them into spaces of peace that he shares with the viewer, who receives them with a longing for permanence, sensing them as an emotional habitat.

Benéitez, as a constant and meticulous observer of the transitional moments between the hours of the day, exercises perfect mastery over their passage, marked by light and color, and flawlessly captures the tones of sunset and dawn in his incredible diptychs depicting the transition of a single landscape.

The observed landscapes become the support for the clock that marks the passing of the hours through the colors of each moment, wrapped in emotions and spaces for reflection, which the artist translates through his palette when capturing them on canvas.

Entering the exhibition hall allows one to move through the layers of tempo with the certainty that beauty has smoothed the thorns and paved the way toward a comforting destination.

Within the gallery, one senses an atmosphere in which the viewer feels part of a space for silent emotional conversation among strangers who share the same calm, united by the invisible thread the artist grants his works, transformed into a meeting place for visitors interacting with one another.

In this series, the horizons merge into a diffuse transition that induces the observer into a waking-dream state with converging emotions that seek not their origin in time, but rather a momentary state of well-being where memory and the present moment become one.

The process of creating the work suggests to me a sea upon which the artist surfs until spreading the final layer across the surface, advancing as it caresses the canvas like the sweep of an almost imperceptible wave.

The abstract-figurative tandem manifests itself in an aesthetic interplay that at times seems to favor abstraction; however, figuration emerges without any will for empowerment, revealing geographical features that provide solidity, or diffuse architectures subtly caressed by transparencies comparable to mists that lend them a soothing warmth.

María José Salazar