From the figurative style, this painter evolved to reach the abstract stage in which he presently is, thanks to the complex and long research process he developed from the questions that move this artist, lover of Incan culture, and especially, of its architecture, as well as of the shapes and peculiarities of its constructions. But, Simeón Gonzáles marks a style which is his own. In his extensive work, he approaches a variety of tendencies and even makes certain hues, his, as these mark his last works´ abstract and suggestive language.
His first and early works denote a clear expressionist style. The angular strokes are the outer expression of this artist´s inner necessity, as he creates shapes, which means he is alive. What is fascinating is that this painter, at the young age of 15, which is very early for an artist, already communicated in his paintings, power, emotional intensity and mysticism expressed in a brutal way. Without a doubt, the social difficulties he was suffering from at that time are reflected on his canvases. Impressionism, a current that stands out in Simeón Gonzáles´ painting, continuously appears, in a subtle and harmonic way, mixed with the other tendencies. The concern for light, from the vibrant luminous frames, to the poetical Andean landscapes, marks the work of Gonzáles Ayquipa who paints with an astounding ease, vision and light, at the same time as he faces the pause mechanics´ problem which he implicitly takes to study.
Simeón is a painter who depicts the reality in which he has been and is immersed; his country´s reality and that of Latin America, as he translates his historical moment´s
intellectual and social concepts, as well as his culture´s philosophical transformations, facing reality in a different way. The great part about it all is that he
has also been able to surpass this figurative art, to reach high levels of abstraction, which, nonetheless, are suggestive and charged with colors and strength.
If the Renaissance architect felt pride in dominating space and the Baroque painter had managed to “master” it within the frame of a canvas, Simeón demonstrates with
his painting technique, that space is not as it may seem, but rather a much more complex curvilinear reality and that a whole mysterious world hides behind the somatic layers. He makes every
effort to dive into the depths of human habits, to reveal melancholy. Indeed, this artist knows the complexity of matter in such a way that he manages to take it to the canvas with subtlety, and
wraps it in a suggestive atmosphere.
In this young Peruvian artist´s evolution, we see his rebellion against his own painting, progressing through his art, step by step. Thus, from impressionism, we
notice a slight approach to fauvism, a reaction in favor of color and portrait of the human being, of his philosophy, thought and feeling, of the human being condemned to loneliness, surrounded
by himself, in a universe in which there is nothing else but himself, and all of this is represented by his complementary colors, reduced to luminous tonalities, with sparks of chromatic
violence. In that way, color converts itself into one of his paintings´ main ingredients, which he uses in a passionate manner, giving preference to flat and broad stains. Thus, he manages a
surprising independence between color and subject, as this autonomous use of color puts him on the path to abstract painting.
Gonzáles Ayquipa paints a youngster with thick lips, absorbed in his own prolongation, with a vivid green and igneous orange broken by yellow, or a native´s face
with sexual ambiguity, which he simply manages by the mere fact of not painting his eyes, as we find ourselves in front of a painting charged with enigma, strength, symbolic content and color
that suggests joy which surrounds that mystery of sad lips. In this painting, are contained the greatest contrasts, and nonetheless, the strength is not centered in the eyes, as it is not the
Gioconda, but its suggestive power is none lesser.
However, Simeón Gonzáles fully respects the subject, as it does not lose anything between colonial violence and arbitrariness, since the line recuperates its energy with thick and clear-cut strokes, but without losing depth at all, in spite of the unique surface. In this stage, he goes on maintaining the same theme: His nation, his people and the Andean natives.
But, Simeón is an artist in constant evolution, and who doesn´t stop whenever he feels comfortable, as he researches and probes pictorial art, without losing the capacity of being in awe and concern in the presence of nature and the representation of its landscapes, fluctuating elements and atmospheric circumstances that vary from one moment to the next. His capturing of light by means of loose chromatic touches, postulates an attitude of truth in the face of reality. This artist seeks what is fugitive and fluid, to catch it and make it unalterable in the tremendous universality of a canvas.
We are not in the presence of a solely and uniquely intuitive artist, as he works without rushing, with an evident dominion of the pictorial technique.
Therefore,
Gonzáles Ayquipa brings about a different and lighter color, a fragile light and wave-like effects of fragmented colors meanwhile he explores the potentialities of stains in his most advanced stage. In his work, we observe a deep study of color and modality of light, as well as that of paint as a mesh of luminous tonalities. His homeland´s influences are clear at the moment of undertaking works of art and orienting his art, since the Andean landscapes are rich in colors, as well as the Andean people´s customs and traditions, their countryside festivities, processions, colorful clothes and folklore. In order to better translate the vibrations of Peruvian rural atmospheres, this artist avoids any retouching of a stroke and prefers thick stains, the possibilities of which started to be exhibited by Goya. The subjects of his first paintings are totally popular, country-like and performed outside the workshop.
This projection towards other places was imposed onto him by circumstances. But, along with it, he has managed to cleanse the colors, seeing and reproducing them in such a purity level which might be said to be overflowing with magic, thus finding a correction to the composition in too much mystery of living and dying. From there on, in the stage he is presently in, we discover cubist influences in his abstract paintings. Just to name one example, in “Vision Series”, neither is the perspective used in the conventional way, nor do the colors correspond to reality.
This allows us, as observers, not to adopt a single point of view with regards to the painting. The angles from which one contemplates the object are multiplied, obtaining thus the sum of all its perspectives. In that series, there is a more austere sense of art. With that way of painting, Simeón Gonzáles reaches the exciting journey across realities the human brain can freely build or destroy. His paintings achieve a new genre of beauty, in terms of volumes, strokes, masses and weights, and through that beauty, the observer interprets this young and genial artist´s subjective impression.