Drawing the perfect plan up and executing it in sin

Chapter 1. Catharsis
"Catharsis" is a work of art painted in 2014 by the
multidisciplinary artist Tobas Cotarelo. It expresses in five
strikes of warm polychrome of oranges, yellows and reds, the pain,
the decadence and the wickedness intrinsic to the human race
battling among them up to consume a positivism of green background
until its dissappearance. "Catharsis" was like that and like that
Antonio Chantalo wrote it at the foot of the reproduction on the
presentation triptych. A review so good that grew the sense of
expectancy enough to make the painting beging the exhibition with
purchasing orders, yes, orders; that much was Antonio's prestige
and that much was people's stupidity.
Luckily for him and for his bussiness, the public of the
prestigious art gallery didn't seem to clash with the public of
the most handsome stalls of female clothes of the Paiosaco fair,
Carballo's or Sada's, to quote just the most significant examples.
At the end, the painting was an exact reproduction, not to say a
copy, of the T-shirt that swarmed the fairs the previous summer
and that had been trendy among women over fifty that wanted to
give a risky touch to their style, Antonio would say; or among
every old women that played modern, I would say.
I, that I did clash in both, in none by pleasure, had noticed it.
I contemplated the painting of a metre long and seventy
centimitres height presiding the main wall of the gallery,
discretely swallowing the canap and dodging the cava trays; I was
going over the gallery owner's review and, far from feeling what
he described, I only could see auntie Blandina coming from the
vegetable garden with a bundle of turnip greens in her arm and
that T-shirt with bleach sprinkles under her check apron.
Anyway, people didn't seem to notice it and the painting was sold
the first day of the exhibition, fact headlined on the cover of
the Informer, no less. It was resold a few months later by three
times its original price and, in time, the increase in value and
fame went hand in hand and exponential; fame of expensive,
obviously; and of cursed, it didn't spend much time in the same
hands. But it also brought the painter prestige and helped him to
avoid that "commercial" label so terrible to those that aim higher
in the arts.
But Tobas, son of Indalecio, an executive in Elecfusin and
Claudina, the editor in chief of the Informer; one of those
couples that got married because everybody did, had a kid because
that was what everybody expected, and spoiled him not to be
outdone, grew in a permanent unsatisfaction and with a chronic
incapability for perseverance, that's why success and pressure, in
Raquel Couto Antelo

Drawing the perfect plan up and executing it in sin

him, also grew hand in hand and exponential.

- The public asks for more - Antonio announced with the calculator
on his hand - we have to make an exhibition with your paintings
only, you would become millionaire.
He was interested in money.
- Twenty - he was hanging by heart the paintings on his gallery.
Twenty? Tobas despaired to himself, the cleaning lady had a
wardrobe full of patterns but poor of selection. No, he despaired
more, the woman doesn't have twenty T-shirts.
- We will create different ambiences playing with the colour of
the walls - Antonio's hands danced on the air.
And, in a display of inspiration similar to the one of his first
work, he thought about framing the cleaning lady's patterns over
different backgrounds, he only needed five different patterns and
that the lady had; and he began to feel the adrenaline of creation
and he almost, almost, almost felt the need to run to the Asian
market where he used to buy his canvas and start working, but he'd
rather stay listening to Antonio's fantasies about triumphs and
money, specially money.
- We have to take the most of the moment, we cannot run the risk
the tendency changes - an Antonio, that also was interested on
money or at least in a share of it, hurried up.
Tobas, once the creative issue was solved, was focusing on red
carpets and premier parties, maybe abroad.
- I can have it ready in two months, is it fine with you? Antonio put an end.
Tobas was adamant, he said a yes that convinced an ignorant
Antonio and got to work. Of course the muses were stand-offish,
cleaning lady's schedule seemed designed to coincide with his
sleeping time, that's why portraying one of those longed-for
patterns took him more time than he expected and so he had just
two weeks left to make art, and that counting he took more than
three months to make the first master piece and a dozen of proofs
now silent witness behind the wardrobe. It's not necessary to say
that the final result was not brilliant, neither it was the first
time and it didn't prevented him from succeed.
But when Antonio saw the collection of nonsenses the son of the
executive of the company that funded the Modern Art Museum where
Raquel Couto Antelo

Drawing the perfect plan up and executing it in sin

he used to work as exhibition organizer, decided that, even his

literary creativity turned out great the first time, he wasn't to
go that far this second time around. And that feeling of "already
seen" he couldn't describe was messing with his head, disburbing
him, warning him that something wasn't going as it should. He
looked again at the twenty pieces and questioned the artist. He
looked through the main art websites, new artist's, junk's and
cream's. No, no, plus, the Tobas he knew wasn't of taking so much
trouble.

Raquel Couto Antelo