The seduction of still life is lost in the vast history of art, as is the heated debate triggered by this genre of painting. It's a never-ending topic, just like subjugation. Given that the process of thinking about art refuses to obey rules other than its own, it often tends to lag behind the leaps and bounds of creative development. While art advances ahead of existing prejudices, pride often blinds reason and emotions. Still life paintings document the history of culture...

In José Antonio Dávila's work (New York, 1935), the work of Sánchez Cotán is brought to mind, as could also be the case with Cézanne. However, while using these two artists as his starting point, Dávila creates a different dimension to his work that does not follow universal laws.

It is impossible to walk by one of ... Dávila's works without being affected by their mystery. They reveal metaphors of an insightful vision of reality in which conscious and subconscious needs merge with social experiences. Colors and forms come together to create harmony and balance, but a secret tension also comes into play.

Dávila captures the spectator's attention with these pieces. Viewers tend to think they know what they want to look at and what they do not. To defend himself, the artist constantly presents surprising scenes where the viewer feels he is seeing things for the very first time. And as the viewer's gaze is always somewhat distracted, the artist sets up a trap for him...

Dávila's work is also implicitly charged with humanistic protest. The artificiality of the outer world versus the genuine nature of the inner world. The imprint left by the objects that surround us. Memory on a blurry blackboard. The hope of the future in the chalk of knowledge. The fruit that hangs from a thread, like our chance-filled lives. The enduring quality of science and the arts. The terrifying solitude of man who takes refuge in himself. A drama that speaks of the silent theater of the mind.

ll these factors combine to make us marvel at José Antonio Dávila's painting. Rather than painting, what we are faced with is soul. And it is the soul that makes us inquire, time and again, into the mystery of how, after so many centuries, still life is a topic that is never exhausted.