Dámaso Ruano, the master of abstraction that never goes out of style

Before Malaga boasted of being modern with graffiti by international urban artists, there were its murals. And long before emerging artists made abstraction fashionable today, there were its landscapes without mountains, skies or seascapes. Or with all that at the same time, depending on who is looking at it. Dámaso Ruano (Tetuán, 1938-Málaga, 2014) painted tirelessly in the last century, but his work speaks volumes to today's generations. La Casa Amarilla (LCA), always at the forefront of contemporary creation, vindicates him as a great master of abstraction in Simplemente Ruano, a re-reading of the work of his last years that will occupy the restored Casa de Socorro in the Trinidad neighbourhood (Promálaga. Plaza de Doña Trinidad, 12) until 13 September. An updated vision of the artist who "painted silence", as LCA's artistic director, Roy Laguna, defines him.

He has lived with these paintings all his life, he has even seen how he made them, but Pablo Ruano is still moved when he sees them on display and dominating a room. In their full dimension. "My only ambition is for my father's work to be seen," he says. He confesses that he has already relieved himself of some of the burden he felt when his father died leaving a huge legacy, with dozens of paintings that accumulated in his workshop in El Palo, although he will always fight to give one of the founders of the Colectivo Palmo, one of those renovators of art who shook up the cultural scene in Malaga in the late 70s, the place he deserves. But it so happens that Dámaso Ruano was "a bohemian", a free soul who never worried about his signature being on the art market. He only cared about creation.

And the result of this obsession is on the walls of the Casa de Socorro. These are pieces by an artist in his maturity, with an absolute mastery of acrylic that allows him to create hypnotically beautiful gradients and gouaches that at times break the serenity of his work. Dámaso Ruano makes the complex simple: he superimposes planes, incorporates textiles, plays with the chromatic range, includes architectural elements ("He loved architecture", says Pablo) ... Everything at the same time but in such a subtle and elegant way that the whole conveys peace, relaxation and silence. It is the "Dámaso Ruano landscape," as David Burbano, founder and director of La Casa Amarilla, calls it.

The exhibition, included in the eighth Contemporary Art Show #ESTIVAL organised by LCA, is an invitation to reflect, to "remember where we come from and where we are going". "There are many young people working in abstraction and sometimes we have to remind them, their teachers and ourselves, that we have artists who a long time ago were developing and researching art projects based on abstraction. For this reason, he warns: "If we want to continue advancing, our feet must not be made of clay".

There are fifteen works and two sculpture studies, created between 1995 and 2006. David Burbano and Roy Laguna selected them in the studio in El Palo among an "avalanche" of pieces still waiting to be hung somewhere. Recuerdos (Memories), a large diptych measuring 146 x 228 cm, was the first one they chose and the one that determined those that were to follow. The chromatic power is striking at first sight: ochres, violets and blues make up a brilliant sunrise. The colours of the Mediterranean are repeated throughout the exhibition, in paintings with suggestive titles: Where the Dream Begins, Skin of the Earth, The Wind Returns...

They are all in the recognisable style of Dámaso Ruano. All except one: The Lion, one of the few paintings by the adopted Malaga-born artist with figuration, with the perfectly defined animal presiding over the scene. A rarity that shows how good a draughtsman he was, capable of imagining dreamlike worlds and, at the same time, portraying any element with absolute realism.

Pablo Ruano talks about all this with an infectious passion. Over the years his admiration for his father has grown exponentially. He regrets not having asked him questions in his youth, for having behaved like any other son with his father, without being fully aware of the magnitude of what he was doing. For him it was normal, what he had grown up with since he was born. So now that he does recognise the extraordinary, it pains him greatly that others do not value enough that here was an artist who innovated fashions and trends. He and his family will remember that.