Martha Zamora

Un paraíso cercano. 2008

The gaze moves slowly, caressing the canvas, becoming saturated with moisture. We move in silence through a mangrove, perhaps due to the enveloping presence of life within this habitat of countless species, where twisted, salt-tolerant trees submerge their roots in the water along the banks, thus providing shelter to an extraordinary diversity of life.

There is an atmosphere of mist in this painting by Zesatti, one that appeals to seduction, drawing us in beyond rational boundaries, into a mystery that speaks of solitude and hope, permeated by the scent of wetlands. José Lezama Lima once said that “landscape is always dialogue, a reduction of nature brought to the scale of humanity.” The energy shifts and, without imposing limits on the communication between art and the soul, an attitude of introspection, inner serenity, and reverence is fostered toward this ecosystem—now so carefully protected—together with an awareness of the crucial role it plays in hosting a vast number of aquatic, amphibious, and terrestrial organisms, while also shielding coastlines from wind erosion. Amid such still yet vibrant waters, among lianas and the occasional green leaf, Zesatti introduces technical solutions into the canvas that no longer derive from the visual information provided by photography.

Max Scheler writes in The Future of Man: “There is only one phenomenon that triggers the nervous discharge of aesthetic pleasure, and that is seeing the faithful image of reality reproduced in a work of art.” Over the years, Armando Zesatti has developed within his practice a spiritual appreciation of landscape as an ideal place on Earth. He approaches landscape painting fully aware that it represents a major form of artistic expression, imbued with layers of meaning that the viewer gradually decodes in order to extract the emotional impact that renders his work unforgettable. The mangroves depicted in his monumental triptych Rincón del Sureste (2008, 2.00 × 4.00 m), even without specifying the exact site portrayed, evoke the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula and the biological reserve areas of the Riviera Maya. Drawing on years of experience, he organizes pictorial space into compositions sustained by a beautiful structure of absolute balance. Most of Zesatti’s landscapes are not panoramic; they focus instead on a proximal space in which he explores territories, forms, and visual languages—not to impose content, but to guide us toward the pleasure of contemplation, toward the poetic condition of nature that he translates onto the canvas in order to make it enduring.

Landscape painting, far from being mere reproduction, constitutes a genre with its own problems, solutions, and aspirations, emerging early in the history of art. With the rise of the art collector in the sixteenth century, the idea of specialization took hold, and influenced by earlier accounts of decorative landscape painting, Italian bourgeois patrons and hierarchs began commissioning pastoral scenes—whether narrative or not—and developed a particular appreciation for Northern European painters for their descriptive precision and mastery of light. When the Union of Calvinist Provinces separated from Spain, ecclesiastical patronage in the Netherlands came to an end, giving rise to domestic markets for patriotic paintings and landscapes. Dutch landscape painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries stands as one of the most brilliant and original periods in European art history. It is characterized by its low horizons and by the expressive power of cloud-laden skies, as well as by the dramatic silhouettes of local motifs such as windmills, fishing boats, twisted trees, and livestock. Alongside Spanish painting of the same era, it represents the first significant departure from the classical ideals of the Renaissance.

Landscape became a subject in its own right in nineteenth-century painting. Romanticism endowed spontaneity with ethical value, and the notion of the “noble savage” paralleled an appreciation of the natural landscape as something neither inhospitable nor threatening. The Dutch art of the Golden Age offered the first modern vision of the countryside, transforming the medieval conception of the rural world as a purely agricultural domain and freeing the land from its association with labor by redefining it as a site of leisure and pleasure.

Following the Spanish conquest of Latin America, art academies were soon founded, including the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico (1783) and San Alejandro in Cuba (1818). Numerous foreign artists arrived in Mexico and achieved great success painting landscapes, yet it is unquestionably José María Velasco (1840–1912), a native of Temascalcingo, who stands as the foremost figure of this discipline, with works such as The Valley of Mexico (1873), Puente de Metlac (1881), and View of Querétaro (1902).

Perhaps due to the perfection of photography, landscape painting fell into disfavor for several decades among audiences, painters, and critics alike; it was regarded as an antiquated, senseless genre, relegated to museums as something endlessly repeatable and somewhat stale. In Cuba, however, the genre was revived in the 1970s by Tomás Sánchez (born in Aguada de Pasajeros in 1948), who devoted himself to landscape painting against the prevailing artistic currents in his country, infusing it with distinctive qualities that gave it renewed meaning. Drawing on the grammar of art—line, form, color, texture, space, and design—he communicates visually a synthesis of aesthetics and language that reflects an intense inner life. Sánchez’s influence is decisive in nearly all subsequent Latin American landscape painters.

Within the contemporary Cuban panorama, the recent work of Lester Campa (Havana, 1968) is noteworthy for its creative, memory-based landscapes, produced without photographic reference. Interestingly, there is also a very young painter, Yussuan Remolina (Havana, 1983), who—without knowing the work of Armando Zesatti—could easily be mistaken for his student in his depictions of intimate landscapes constructed from photographs taken in the plains surrounding his home.

Raised within a close-knit and supportive family of five siblings (four men and one woman) and a devoted father—like several other family members, employed in the insurance business—Armando Zesatti, the fourth child, grew up in a suburb of Mexico City. With the intention of continuing the family business, he completed a degree in Business Administration at the Universidad del Nuevo Mundo, though he did not submit a professional thesis. There he presented his first heterogeneous exhibition, featuring seascapes, still lifes, and horses. Painting, initially a recreational activity, gradually became a professional career, yet he does not consider his administrative studies a waste of time: “A painting is ultimately a product that must be supported by marketing, promotion, and research into sensitive areas or concentrations of potential clients. There are many parallel activities that must be carried out alongside painting itself.”

During a period of economic crisis in Mexico, he considered abandoning painting and taking refuge in the family business, but within less than three months he had returned to painting. He was now enjoying a new shift in direction: cut-out works—paintings executed on wooden supports and developed as trompe l’oeil. Whether it was a jacket hanging from a real hook or a water pump installed on a busy street and seen daily by all the residents of La Herradura, the neighborhood where Zesatti grew up, these works blurred the boundary between illusion and reality.

This was followed by paintings based on the repetition of forms, using images ranging from flowers and fish to children’s toys or baskets. Perfect composition, harmony, and a keen handling of light and shadow are the defining qualities of this transitional period.

“Although it may not seem plausible in light of what my personal and professional life is today, at that point in my life—approaching the age of thirty—I felt almost like a failure. My parents had supported me in every decision I made, yet I looked around and saw siblings and friends with families of their own, with children, advancing further than I was in their careers. I was still living with my family, even though I had purchased an apartment that remained uninhabited, and I made a drastic decision: I sold everything, even my car, and moved to Vancouver. I didn’t manage to sell my paintings there, but I did regain emotional stability. I accepted that I was introverted and somewhat shy, living alone, and I began to enjoy my solitude, my independence as a single, nomadic, and free individual.”

At that time, he was painting a wider range of subjects, including palm trees laden with coconuts, banana plants, open beaches, and sailboats. Although he did not sell his work in Vancouver, he brought his paintings back to Mexico, placing them on consignment in various exhibition spaces.

We are accustomed to identifying in artists those self-destructive impulses that drive them haltingly toward death. They often embrace chaos early on and rush toward their final reckoning, unable to reconcile themselves with the dull, monotonous pain of being alive. Perhaps even within the art world, hierarchy tends to favor artists who have fulfilled a quota of suffering. When life is lived so close to the edge—as it is for most of them—it becomes difficult to survive such extremes. Conversely, when one possesses extraordinary gifts, it can seem almost impossible to live an ordinary life.

It is rare for Armando Zesatti to live with overt doses of irrationality; on the contrary, he is a being who hovers deceptively still and tense, like a hummingbird—turned inward, carrying a certain vulnerability, devoted to transforming images into poetry as he withdraws from the world while painting with passion, joy, depth, and feeling. His work becomes a quintessence of himself, expressed through dreamlike units of green.

The green environments that Zesatti paints are part of the everyday landscape. They have always been there, close to us, forming part of what feels familiar and pleasing.

He abstracts forms until they achieve a geometric constriction, as in Abanicos (2001), or draws us into a space we recognize as our own in Entre la vida y la muerte (2003), where young banana plants gleam in green while others decline into yellow tones that foreshadow an end. There is fragility and strength, sensuality and pain, in this painting of gentle melancholy. With his brush, Zesatti compiles a meticulous inventory of this section of paradise. His vegetal universe encompasses everything—the beginning and the end—within realms of softness and whispers.

He works in a minimalist studio, impeccably clean, with absolute discipline and during long sessions that stretch from morning into night, accompanied by various types of music, from rock to the great classical compositions. He advances slowly, working on large-format canvases (1.50 × 2.00 m or 1.30 × 0.80 m are common dimensions), immersed in a busy solitude until he is satisfied with the solidity of his proposal. Within an apparent repetition of subject matter, he introduces subtle changes that mark his evolution as an artist and lead us to unravel an almost literary visual discourse, from which emerges another, more reflective one that carries a sense of quiet admonition, urging us to assume responsibility. He commits and involves us through the unique force of his primary argument: beauty. A painting of standard size takes him three weeks to complete, while a monumental work such as the mangrove triptych requires four months, because “each painting must always be given the time it needs.”

The development of his work maintains definitive ties to Hyperrealism as it emerged in the United States between 1965 and 1970, a movement that sought to transport life in all its detail onto the canvas through the use of photography as another useful instrument within the creative process.

He acknowledges that during the initial planning stage of a painting, he could receive assistance focused exclusively on that phase, but he responds: “I am obsessive and I recognize that I don’t know how to delegate. I enjoy every stage of the process. I feel that it helps me better understand my work and the forms that compose it. This initial stage functions as a kind of map for the painting. I then proceed to block in with dark tonal masses, and little by little I superimpose lighter tones. At the end, I like to apply black and white before adding the protective varnish. Many painters avoid black because they believe it creates a ‘visual void.’ I was never afraid of it, although I did overuse outlining every element of my paintings—every contour of each agave leaf or banana leaf—with an extremely thin brush. It was after the mist paintings I produced following a trip to Jalapa, Veracruz, that it became clear to me that I should not outline every detail in every plane, but only those belonging to the foreground.”

“I am aware,” Zesatti says, “of other ways to achieve the same result, such as using a grid. On one occasion, while visiting one of those enormous art-supply stores in the United States, I noticed that they sold projectors and I didn’t understand why they were offered there. When I learned their purpose, it seemed to me that their use undermined the romantic aspect of art—that idea of carrying your easel into the countryside as in the era of the Impressionists. From the beginning of my career, I enjoyed excelling in detail, and that was when I turned to gridding the canvas.”

The formation of a self-taught artist such as Zesatti requires a great deal of discipline in order to learn technique gradually over the course of an artistic career. There were periods when he lived far from his birthplace, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and in Vancouver, Canada. Every experience becomes integrated into the process of maturation as a painter.

During the early stages of his practice, he attended painting workshops where he acquired essential tools for handling materials—tools that proved to be a valuable complement to his solitary efforts. He takes digital photographs in many different regions of the country, from Jalapa and Coatepec to Puerto Vallarta, Veracruz, and Sayulita. He is drawn to gardens untouched by human intervention, which grow spontaneously everywhere, even in Mexico City, where Zesatti was born on April 8, 1967. Yet he does not dismiss a compelling image that might come from the median strip of a busy avenue or from the wall of a neighboring garden.

Given his well-chosen titles—Un poco de rosa en un sueño verde (2003), Alma gemela (2006), Puerta del sueño (2003), Último sentimiento verde (2001), A la luz del verde (2001), or Pirotecnia (2004)—one might assume that Zesatti is an avid reader, but this is not the case. He confesses to reading books about painters and being a devoted film enthusiast.

The painting titled Pirotecnia stands as an unusual example within Zesatti’s visual language. It recreates the natural curve of illuminated grasses that rise and fall like feathery pampas plumes against a dark background, standing sensually between light and shadow, lightness and resistance. Few elements, and a title never more aptly chosen.

His desire to learn more about painting drives him to read about the Impressionists, their lives, and their trajectories. “The first Mexican painter who truly impacted me was Rafael Cauduro (1950). For years, he was my inspiration. Later came the Spaniard Santiago Carbonell (1960), and other Hyperrealists such as the Chilean Claudio Bravo (1936) or the Mexican Arturo Rivera (1945). Among American artists, Andrew Wyeth (1917), Southwest Art, and Pop Art. There was a time when I greatly admired the Spanish painter Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), although I think I liked him more in the past than I do now.”

The central theme of his individual pursuit as a painter is nature without human presence. He believes that “the inclusion of a human figure distracts and distorts the message of my work.” There is a clear preference for green plants such as palms or banana trees, though flowers occasionally appear, as in Heliconia (2000) or Lirios II (2000). Diverse subjects such as volcanoes or the fish in Piscis (2006) also emerge unexpectedly, alongside the reflection of golden light on moving water in the abstract painting Atardecer (2005). “I externalize only a portion of the ideal landscape I carry within myself: in it, I select and transform nature in order to represent it in a personal way.”

In an interview conducted for the publication of the first book on his work (2002), Zesatti stated that two themes would guide his future production: water and sky. Water already appears in several of his paintings—in ponds, still waters within mangroves, and close-up views such as the rocks on the beaches of Sayulita (2006), or in transparent waters covering stones polished by the current, as seen in recent works like Poza Reina (2007) and Ya está empezando a llover (2007).

The arrival of water—its transparency and freshness—has flooded Armando Zesatti’s work in recent years. With great technical mastery, he reproduces the reflection of plants, as in the green-toned work Encuentro abstracto (2006), or the striking contrast between brown stones and the intense blue of water in Poza Reina and Sayulita, which exude stillness, freshness, and memories of vacations spent lingering idly by the sea.

He pushes his painterly skill even further in Ya está empezando a llover (2007), with his expert handling of water’s transparency, marked by the traces of raindrops and the gleaming volumes of stones.

The skies now remain to be explored.

In the future, Armando Zesatti hopes to devote himself to seeking out cenotes—subterranean cavities containing water, prevalent in the limestone terrain of the Yucatán Peninsula—and to painting skies. “I will look for cloud formations that lead me to paint beautiful paintings.” One who finds no pleasure in what they do cannot expect the product of their effort to be enjoyed by others. This painter takes pleasure in the process of painting and in the emotion it provokes in him. All of his work reflects an optimistic approach to life.

Just as nomadic Arab tribes spread their floral carpets over the sand and thereby enjoy a portable private garden—their paradise—Zesatti brings into the enclosed spaces of noisy, conflict-ridden urban environments a horizon of green, of clear waters, of the tropics. For him, even gathering storm clouds are nothing more than the promise of life-giving rain.