JAMES LAMBOURNE | FITES DE LA MÚSICA

In 2000, the facsimile of the 24 Preludes by Chopin fell into the hands of the artist James Lambourne (London, 1956). These scores create a great impact on Lambourne; the musical figures represented by the Polish composer’s special calligraphy –he never made fair copies of his scores- the vigorously crossed out notes contain an aesthetic that immediately became part of the personal imaginary of James Lambourne, initiating one of the most intense stages of his artistic career. The 43 drawings that make up ‘Fites de la Música’ mark a before and an after in his work, they are the beginning of a very intimate and personal path, a diary in images. “I began the first series of drawings during the final months of my mother’s life. This means they are very intimate. As I spoke to my mother I was writing an inexplicable visual diary, like a map of my feelings.” Inspired by the drawings of ‘Fites de la Música’ Iván Martín (Gran Canaria, 1978), pianist and composer who shared studio with James Lambourne in Valldemossa at that time, composed Ictus. This work is made up by four pieces written in a reciprocal interaction with Lambourne, all with one leitmotiv: a melody dreamed by the artist. “The day my mother died I began to paint with the colour blue. And that evening I had a blue dream in which I was underwater and I could see blue notes.” In 2002 he exhibits the drawings and 4 paintings in the Sala Capitular of Valldemossa in the Chopin Festival. That’s when Biel Mesquida (Castellón de la Plana, 1947), writer and poet, comes into contact with the work of Lambourne and writes the text for the exhibition catalogue, entitled ‘James Lambourne paints the Music of the Spheres’ As my eyes wander over the paintings Lambourne has titled Fites de la música (Musical milestones), three names come into my head at once forming a belvedere from which I take intense pleasure in the détails exacts of painted literature: Chopin, Lucretius and Miró are the keys that opened Lambourne’s doors and windows to me. Biel Mesquida The exhibition, which opened in August 2002, was open to the public for a month, since then these works haven’t been exhibited again. From Palmyra Sculpture Centre we want to present this work, so we have developed a project together with the artist, starting from making prints of the 43 drawings. We found in the Netherlands the only studio where such copies of the work can be made, with an inpeccable image and detail quality. From these prints we will develope different items, such as a collector’s box containing the 43 prints reworked by the artist -reliefs, engravings and other elements that are lost when photographing the drawings will be recreated on each print-, a catalogue and a special edition of a collector’s catallogue. We would like to take you on the path guided by James Lambourne’s imagination from the first step to the last stone into the worderful natural beauties of this island. I vanish into Lambourne’s constellations and a counterpoint of music, voices and songs, rises out of these intimate starry-skied cartographies while at the same time, by some paradoxical process, something long forgotten becomes visible to me: the quality of silence in a score. Biel Mesquida