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A man with a cat

Ceramic polish on tiles. 60 x 30 cm. Before 1980

Private collection

"His characters may stay still and not walk. Their glance may be inwards, perhaps, looking for a lost paradise, an interior Arcadia. This may be the reason behind those roots as feet, those logs as legs. He shows us the human, animal and plant world in harmony." (La Verdad, 22-II-90)

Sometimes Párraga resorts to the technique called «third firing» or «on polish»: he applies a new polish on already polished and fired ceramics (which is called «caking»), and he then would fire them again. He learned this technique in the School of Arts and Crafts, in one of the classes of the ceramist Nuria Sureda.

Here he uses three different brands of 15x15cm tiles as a base. They are slightly uneven in tone and size, which doesn’t seem to bother him at all.

At first glance, we see a monochromatic work, but later, we can find three different tones of polish, applied with different methods: the head, hands and feet are in a dark brown color. He works with a brush, leaving bare zones. The cat is almost black, and he then uses the technique called «sgraffito»: he makes traces with a sharp object, scratching the pigment before firing the tiles.

The character’s body is slightly greenish, and it is made by pressing with a kind of sponge.

All of these techniques result in textures and color nuances that prevail over figures or lines.

Antonio Carbonell Artús (Cactus) was a painter, comic artist and a good friend of Párraga. He took care of the eight tiles gifted to him by José María.

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