portraits

Handmade chemistry

MiquelBarcelo

Colm Toíbín in conversation with Miquel Barceló.

Colm Tóibín: In The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, Hans Castorp sees an X-ray of himself for the first time, and it’s almost erotic, he sees what really his soul or his body, what the X-ray has done. There’s something about your recent paintings that have that element of looking at X-Rays. Could you tell me technically how the paintings are made?

Miquel Barceló: It’s bleached canvas. In the beginning, I used black paper or board and bleach and a little bit of white chalk.