Retrospective – Evoluzión

Is painting one of the oldest activities known to Man?

Why did the caveman have the need to leave his mark on the stone that gave him shelter? And… why do we continue to do it to this day?… A good question to ask Jimmy Day.

Retired from the day-to-day activities of our frenetic Universe, isolated on a tropical island in the Caribbean, and within this island doubly isolated from it and the World, protected by high walls, he fulfils his necessity to paint. WHY?

This is a question that perhaps I have also asked myself since living on the same island and under similar conditions for the last nine years. It is not that we have to paint to live. rather, it is that we live to paint. What is it then that makes a person express himself through painting since the beginning of time? I fear that neither Jimmy nor I nor the innumerable painters who have proceded us, have the answer. Possibly we are born with an incurable virus, which pushes us without reason, to do it. And, to our own discomfiture and that of those close to us who accompany and succour us, the need to paint instead of being a pleasure becomes an internal torture… But we continue to do it.

It is difficult as a painter to analyse the work of a colleague. This is the task for the critics. I can only say that, from the time that I have known Jimmy: I have been singularly impressed by his work, by the seriousness of his approach and by his ongoing commitment to improve. I have seen and followed his work and have been aware of its evolution. His painting is not effortless. Rather, it requires multiple stages; compositional sketches, later enlarged to scale to transfer then to canvas, followed by in-depth tonal and chromatic studies in order to achieve coherent whole. Of course, these were the techniques of the Old Masters, now abandoned by the newer generations, under the pretext of “modernity”. However, one can still be “modern” and use the old ways, as is clearly shown in music and literature. Here one has to master the craft, these cannot be improvised. A musical composition or a book has to be above all, well written, just as a painting must be well painted, and that is not easy. This exacting approach is what has enabled Jimmy Day’s work to be a masterly expression, particularly in its composition and in the chromatic harmony dominated by ochre, greens and yellows. His most recent series, based on banana groves, are an example of quality and coherence, where there is evident a will, a personality and an unmistakeable style, all of which deserve high praise.

Ángel Hurtado

Distinguished Venezuelan painter and film producer. Holder of may prestigious national and international awards.