El trabajo de Francisco Navarrete, se sustenta en una tensión fundamental: la tensión producida entre los límites convencionales de la pintura y el dibujo, y los límites formales de la fotografía. Su trabajo se inscribe como un desplazamiento permanente desde los elementos que constituyen la tradición de la pintura (la tela como soporte, el cuerpo como modelo, el autorretrato como género, y la mancha como unidad fundamental), hacia los elementos que tradicionalmente vinculamos a la imagen fotográfica (lo automático, lo mecánico, lo reproducible). De modo que, podemos encontrarnos con imágenes producidas fotográficamente sobre un soporte de aluminio, que a pesar de provenir de negativos que podrían generar múltiples copias, no son susceptibles de ser reproducidas, pues han sido ejecutadas a partir de un gesto, a partir de un brochazo de emulsión fotosensible que difícilmente podría volver a repetirse. Así mismo, podemos encontrarnos con imágenes que aparentan haber sido producidas digitalmente, no obstante, corresponden a imágenes que han sido intervenidas de forma manual, simulando una apariencia mecánica o digital.
Las operaciones visuales que Francisco Navarrete realiza, constituyen en definitiva, una reflexión respecto de los límites convencionales que le han sido atribuidos a la representación pictórica –ya sea en cuanto a soportes, motivos o procedimientos-, por medio de desplazamientos que van desde lo fotográfico a lo pictórico, y por lo tanto, desde lo mecánico –o digital-, a lo manual.

Marta Hernández Parraguez. Artista Visual.
Magíster © en Teoría e Historia del Arte.


In his fotographies Franciso Navarrete Sitja shifts between painting, drawing and digital images. He quotes classic compositions as well as the classic genres of self-portraits, nudes and motives of art history. Sitja, with his hand proofs on aluminum, insists on uniqueness when he uses emulsion like paint and / or pixels his paintings by hand - making a reproduction impossible although he mainly uses mechanic techniques.
Over and over again he plumbs the borderlines beween different generas by visualising the shift of drawing and painting via fotography up to digital manufacturing techniques. at this he moves details into the foreground, fading image elements and lets the emulsion crumble as if it was aging paint. some details remind us of the known but without getting to precise. Sitjas fotographies change between showing and hiding, which accounts for the idiosyncratic appeal of his pictures. It seems as if they were remaining in poetic intermediate worlds.


Francisco Navarrete's work is supported by a fundamental tension; the strain produced between the predictable boundaries of painting and drawing, and the formal margins of photography. His work defines itself, as a permanent swing from the elements of the tradition of painting; the canvas as a support, the body as a model, the self-portrait as a genre, and the slick as a fundamental unit; to elements traditionally associated with the photographic image (the automatic, mechanical, and reproducible). Therefore, we can find photographic images produced on an aluminum plate. Which despite sharing a negative that could generate numerous copies, these images cannot be reproduced. Because they have been executed after a gesture from a photosensitive emulsion brush stroke that could hardly be repeated. As well, we can find imagery that seem to have been created digitally; however, this speaks about images that have been interfered by hand, simulating an unconsciously or digital manifestation. The visual processes that Navarrete performs, are eventually a reflection on the conservative boundaries that have been attributed to the pictorial representation, whether in terms of supports, grounds or procedure, through travels ranging from the photographic to pictorial, and therefore, from the mechanical, or digital, to manual.
Marta Hernández Parraguez. Visual Artist. Master in Theory and History of Art.