Almuñécar, Granada, 14 de mayo de 1928)
There was a queue of people at the door of the Sale de Expositiones de la Casa Condesa de Torre-Isabel
when we arrived for the exhibition launch on a warm evening in early June. Some idling, some waiting
to get through, others smoking a last cigarette before they entered to hear the dignitaries speak in glowing
tones of one of their own: An Andalusian,
an Almuñecar man, now in his 80's, who
sent the critics racing for their pens when
he launched his first exhibition at the age
of 16, which expressed his interest in submarine landscaping.
My art teacher had passed on the
official invite, the lovely enscribed and
illustrated invitation from the La Alcaldesa
del Ayuntamiento de Motril, which I was glad
to get. Having attended some of their public
presentations in the past I knew by
experience the detail and polish that
attended their affairs. However, just being
an amateur artist and no critic, when I view
art it is from a subjective perspective rather than an objective one. For what do I really know about the
type of work that goes into producing and harnessing year in and year out a constant flow of creativity.
So I consider myself as the person on the street walking through the corridors of someone else's
imagination. Like most of you guys out there?
And what a treat I had. I don't have to say here that Domínguez de Haro is a fine artist, for anyone
with an interest in Spanish art will recognise his name, he's a man who uses his skills to paint and detail
marine life, who uses his voice to display the colour, life and sound, to leave an artful reference and story
of what we have, and what we have to lose if don't attend to our environment with better care.
His colour, his detail, the clarity of his stroke ,and the tone of his voice invite one to step into
imagination, to lift the undersea world into a daily mediation. "For nowhere either with more quiet or
more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within
him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility ..." Marcus Aurelius,
—and De Haro gives one an alternative image to mediate on.
At recepion on the way through, I received a neatly tied scrolll with a short bio and with a print of
one of his paintings, ready for framing, and I also bought a catalogue of his work. What struck me on
flicking through it there and then was his introductary piece: El Origen de la Vida, only painted in 2008,