After a preface that addresses Mercedes Pardo’s painting [production], writer José Balza analyzes the Signes series. He explains that Pardo began that series by chance, owing to an impression of a nail cast on a piece of paper. Balza argues that the series is characterized by “gestural precision” and the “tenacity of rust.” Balza further explains that the series consists of twelve books on the signs of the zodiac to which Pardo applies extra-pictorial elements (screws, bolts, clips). In Balza’s view, “the cabalistic” in these works takes the shape of formal suggestion or of gesture turned into signal. On that basis, the author lists a series of traits characteristic of Pardo’s production as a whole: expressive silence, passage “from color to color,” and color in a “state of dignity.” He points out the fact that in her production, Pardo has made use of the vertigo of “surfaces like mirrors.” Her art gives rise to a “solid but virtual chromatic discovery.”

José Balza (b. 1939) is an emblematic writer of Venezuela and of Latin America as a whole; his work has been translated into a number of languages. His texts on artist Mercedes Pardo (1921–2005) are significant due to their literary quality, as well as to his friendship with the artist whose work he closely followed starting in the seventies. Balza’s text takes a sensitive and poetic approach to Pardo’s work and the images that he chooses to illustrate it are well chosen. The text provides information on the Signes series (1961–63), which is atypical within Pardo’s production: the artist is seen basically as “the great colorist” of Venezuelan art and that series is bound to the Informalism that emerged in Venezuela in the early sixties.

Significantly, this essay also discusses as well traditions that relate to the way in which contemporary artists operate. Balza asserts that Mercedes Pardo has foregone three supports (or approaches) innate to the artist in these times: figuration, illustrative skill that has weakened abstract art, and composition akin to conventional architecture.

[For another text on Mercedes Pardo by Balza, see “La piel visual” at the ICAA digital archive (doc. no. 1157222). For texts on Pardo by other authors, see interviews by Ruth Auerbach, “La creación como argumento” (doc. no. 1143060) and by Margarita D’Amico, “Mercedes Pardo: 1 x 9” (doc. no. 1155959); Alejandro Otero, “Mercedes Pardo: color de la serigrafía” (doc. no. 1143176); Roberto Guevara, “Color y módulos en Mercedes Pardo” (doc. no. 1155991); Bélgica Rodríguez’s article, “Mercedes Pardo: 1951–2000” (doc. no. 1143027); and Lorenzo Batallán, “‘Signos’ de la pintora Mercedes Pardo” (doc. no. 1155975).]