Without preceding studies, each painting is completely unique; attributed to an instant, the instant of the image’s creation. Referring to what he calls new projective blots, the artist starts by distributing various blots over the work surface. At first we do not see a chromatic relationship, formal or aesthetic, between the elements  on the canvas; however, slowly and progressively, we begin to observe that these parts are establishing a dialogue, just as if distinct  ideas organize themselves to form a whole thought. Familiar patterns appear, manifesting themselves individually or, alternatively, they merge together with other patterns creating a progressively stronger and obvious dialog. Many times inspired and seen through the simple and objective perception of a child, suggesting uncomplicated figures, even archetype, the compositions merge and invariably draw attention. (...)

Carlos Barao, suggests that we for a moment should leave behind the logical, formal, paradigmatic thinking and instead in a more contemplative way use our narrative thinking. Without  finding it strange, each image will suggest that we involve it in our personal experience. In this instant, for one instant, there is an acrylic love - the painting is part of us and we are a part of the painting.

Carlos Barao incomplete narratives which the painter executes by means of capturing short excerpts of longer texts, congeal a finite moment that will grab the attention of even the most distracted spectator. Sealing on his canvases references to comic strips, citing incognito posters or writing down lost sentences, the artist seems to want to tell a tale – perhaps a fairy tale – that transcends his own life. As a result the on-looker is invited to complement the story-in-suspension with his own references and memories. In this way  expressions and images find a completion through lives other than the author’s. The gap between the image and its meaning seems to reside in the personal and non-transmittable ambit of each of us. (...)

The paintings of Carlos Barao speak an apparently inaccessible language, like the feeling of something intimate and strange – Das Unheimliche according to Freud.  As they simply present – not represent – every-day objects, each of the pictorial works expresses a reminiscence of lost childhood, of complicated attainment. Whereas the representation suggests a collective memory, the presentation reaches and strikes the individual memory. Thus, upon reflection of our personal recognition of objects that accompanied us during our childhood, the paintings of Carlos Barao show what is of primordial importance in our relationship with each of the mentioned objects: the grief and the pleasure of loss and of reencounter.

Carlos Barao attempt  - by means of collages, spontaneous or more controlled brushstrokes, the juxtaposition of different elements, the apparently wild flings at the canvas, the rough stroke – to elevate the common objects to the memories and feelings that each of us internalise. The unchanging narratives to which the paintings refer are intended to appeal to and grant the onlooker a better way to understanding.

The pictorial narratives are defined in opposition to the literary or cinematographic narratives. In the latter, the narrative requires a certain time, always linear, which is imposed by the object and has to be spent by the spectator who sometimes will require the help of figure-of-speech like flash-back or anachronism. In painting the linear narrative is substituted by the incidental in which the spectator determines from the beginning the time he dedicates to each image. Literature and cinema, on the one hand, are built on the basis of different elements and images that are always dominant, in the sense that they pre-determine strictly the time we have at our disposal for appreciation. Pictorial narratives, on the other hand, are built up on the basis of a one and only image that might appear to be dogmatic and totalitarian, but that on the contrary is permissive, in relation to what can be seen and what is told. In the works of Carlos Barao this permeability is constant: not only because the images evolve constantly from the memories of the spectator through reference to childhood drawings, but also because the difficulty in identifying the objects encourages a more imaginative creativity and alludes to a more ecstatic and emotive narrative.

The dialogue between paintings and spectators is neither obvious nor direct. The pictorial narratives are not linear as little as the access is easy to individual memory. In short, the paintings of Carlos Barao are, on the one hand, familiar narratives in the sense that we recognise the objects and stories they represent, but, on the other, strange in the sense that each spectator and the own nature of the paintings complicate the access to the memory they try to evoke: to feel something strangely familiar.

(...) In order not to extend too much or deviate from the essence, I only intend to say that I consider this work superb, well settled, suitable in its composition, and having an absolutely seductive color temperature. (...)

I can see small squares full of elements, roads, constructions, a wall, a square and a cube, letters and texts, symbols and numbers. I can see a path and flowers. I can see a child with a big head and rumpled hair, a figure with open hands, a lady with big breasts. I can see a house and a lake, another child, sister of the first one, runs by. I can see lines and atmospheres, blood and life…

Yes, I can see all that, knowing Carlos that your work is completely abstract, that you don´t need references, that you prefer the search for surprise, for the plastic event, for the adventure of the solution, for the consolidation of a personal and unique language.

Dear companion and friend, what to say standing before you work? For me, it´s a delight and breath of fresh air... Keep painting with what everyone should paint – the guts!

José Manuel Ciria