In the works of Manss Aval the canvas becomes a repository of graphic signs that rest upon a background that is as neutral as possible, where each track is a discovery and revelation, where each figure rises to the role of the protagonist.
This idea of a fresh start makes him similar to Joan Mirò, famous artist associated with the importance of signs, inventor of mysterious “scriptures” and most faithful follower of the magic value of the gesture.
A work by Joan Mirò in particular that approaches that of Manss Aval’ s is: “Portrait of a Dancer” Paris, mid-February–Spring 1928; where there is a whole ritual almost mystic, a religious silence.
The “acrobatic” arrangement of the strands of grass on the sand, perhaps accidental, perhaps intentional, in the works of Manss Aval recalls, although in a less experimental and defined way, the compositions that Robert Simthson and Richard Long used to create with materials of nature. Let’s not forget, however, that in the case of Manss Aval we are referring to painting and not installation, but there is a big similarity to these two exponents of Land Art in their desire to “organize” the chaos and random disorder of nature.
Manss’ Aval’s works, express an essentiality and touching simplicity, where there is no added elements to spoil the idyll, where the background is almost a blank screen, where only signs are arranged harmoniously and the veracity of the composition seems to be in front of a picture fullof light: a light that doesn’t generate shadows and is able to cancel the third dimension, by removing the thickness of the bodies.
Maybe those fragments of yellowed grass are composing letters, a code phrase or some kind of imaginary, the fact is that it is a language of which only the artist is the interpreter.
Aval, thanks to his profession as a photographer, as well as a painter, manages to see through new, alert, lively and “mobile” eyes, all the things that surround him. He manages to restore dignity to the little quirks of nature and to give voice to objects and beings that inhabit this world. Only then the sea, the sand, the birds, the plants once again have their autonomous place in the ecosystem, without the immediate intervention of man.
He represents always a disenchanted reality, but nevertheless makes sure not to spoil the sense of wonder for nature. The lyrical sense of this work is behind the silence that rises almost “deafening”; silence that keeps away this time the chirp of seagulls or the lapping of the waves, leaving only the hot sand that burns in the sun and that has embedded inside the rocky crystals of arboreal strands.
Our world, the one where we live every day, the one we make functional to our small or large discoveries is presented in a completely new dress by Manss Aval, a dress covered by truthfulness, but also of sweetness and intimate solemnity.
Dr. Federica Peligra, “Last Paradise”, Esposizione Triennale Di Arti Visive A Roma, Giorgio Mondadori, editor, p. 71-73, 2014.