A rhythmic rain-forest rises over the brick of Ignacio Pérez Joffre without apparent fear. And his lack of fear scares us, because it makes us see things openly. It's Paula Fraile's wild painting, making the cement tirite and people feel a little better. Under the paving stones, the beach; under the billboards, the jungle.
And it's not just my perception, no, no. It's the curator and poet Agustín de Julián who calls the artist «beast» and compares her painting with a leafy forest of strokes and colors. And writes for her: «Louis Vauxcelles feared to be devoured, and he appointed me, and by naming me he appointed the relentless, inextinguishable thirst, if not in the pure water of the archaic resources. Fauvisme, fauvisme, shouted». As a «beauty pastor», Agustin responds to the requirements of what he calls «his children artists». There are people who live for «the four attributes of the Platonic Being» and others to continue always being kids, or beasts, or overmen (übermensch).
Arousing with her provocative brush- strokes, Paula confronts the world doing what she wants. But, how difficult it's to know how to do what one wants. We all have forgotten, fearing to look like little animals. And in the end it seems that knowing how to desire by oneself is the most difficult thing - to control our desires is precisely why advertising is created. «It evokes a break with the establishment», says a pedestrian asked randomly in front of Paula Fraile's billboard placed during the month of June. «There has to be a bit of everything», says another lady, after greeting her neighbor who is passing by, «publicity and also this, the two of them can compete, don't you think?» And she smiles. Of course, the artist seems to know how to contribute with what the citizens may want. Her experience teaching mural workshops with children and participating in festivals such as "Derrubando muros con pintura (Tearing down the walls with paint)" in Carballo, La Coruña, becomes evident when generating a positive tendency in people.
Paula has collaborated with the Madrid gallery Columpio, with the Asturian Alfara or the Oude Bad Huis space in Antwerp, but she also goes out to find the life in the city itself, proposing projects to City Councils and "becoming indispensable". She is interested in changing the cities, fostering a sense of caring, an active art that comes directly to people - or, at the very least, connecting their tracks, as she did last summer with the project "El rastro involuntario (The involuntary trail)" by painting a huge network linking the chewing gums stuck on the sidewalks:
"Ocho por Tres" intends to have given back at least a little bit of everything she gives through her art and educational work, dedicating her some space and admiring her - which is one of the many targets of this project: to feel the fun of changing the format of works that were originally meant to be canvases or analogical photographs, to enjoy the effect and to reflect the fascination that some creators produce on me, rendering them a tribute of 24 m².