The career of Venezuelan painter, draftsman, and graphic designer Víctor Hugo Irazábal (b. 1945) is analyzed in detail from a formal, philosophical, and psychological perspective by critic Víctor Guédez. The close relationship between the two is rooted in the meetings the author had with various artists (during the 1980s) to discuss the art of the times. The text makes known their lengthy examinations of Irazábal’s creative process throughout his career. His focus emphasizes the interior dynamic of the artist as the drive to develop his own language; without discarding the variables arising from his surroundings (the sociopolitical situation, study trips, and his defensive stance of drawing, in light of the predominance of painting, etc.).
Guédez’s review likewise sheds light on the other disciplines that influenced Irazábal’s work (graphic design and visual communication) and some of his expressive solutions, which are especially connected to the synthesis of forms, the principles of Constructivism, and the use of modules. A significant contribution of the text is its systematization of Irazábal’s work using specific categories that characterize the different facets of his work: those related to his process of investigation and creation, formal aspects, and those referring to meaning and the mode in which the elements reveal different levels of meaning. [The text] also reaffirms the relationship between intuition/emotion and reason as a structural mechanism.