1950 He was born in Palma de Mallorca on September 1st. On his mother’s side, he is the great grandson of the sculptor Lluís Font i Martorell.
1965-69 Whilst studying for his baccalaureate, he attends the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma.
1969 He enters the Higher School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona. He studies Art there until 1974. He participates in the XXVIII Hall of Autumn organised by the Fine Arts Circle in Palma, and in theVIII International Art Contest in Pollença. These works, which belong to his first period, fit in with the local tradition of landscapes, still life and portraits.
1970-72 He takes part in the collective exhibition of the group "Bes". This was held at the Rincón del Artista (Artist’s Corner) in Palma (1970). In this exhibition and together with other artists on the island, his works during these years reflect new approaches which are not free from certain influences of the new Catalonian figuration at that time.
1973 He holds his first individual exhibition at the Ariel gallery in Palma. In the opening text, Josep M. Palau i Camps observed that his works were "... obviously disturbed, distorted, but still faithful to a certain kind of figurative tendency... ". It is a transition period where the first rough attempts towards abstraction are revealed. During the month of August he participates in the collective exhibition "Ensenya 1", at the gallery Quatre Gats in Palma and makes what is to be known as his one and only incursion into conceptual language.
1974 He ends his studies in art at the School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi. He settles in Palma and takes part in two collective exhibitions: "Art Jove from Majorca" and "Art Avui in Majorca". He has his first art studio in Jovellanos street in Palma and teaches art at San José Obrero Secondary School.
1976 His second individual exhibition takes place at the Museum of Majorca in Palma. By now he has abandoned figurative language and, as Miquel Seguí Aznar underlined in the exhibition catalogue, begun to make a deep incursion into the work of gesture and matter, "in a progressive simplification, which always bears a noticeable intuitive nature which is in any case, a constant feature in all his works". He participates in two collective exhibitions: "Art Jove from Majorca" and another at the Quatre Gats gallery.
1977 He decides to dedicate all his efforts to art and quits teaching. He makes the cover for the Xicraini book of poems by Andreu Vidal.
1978 For the very first time he takes part in the collective summer exhibition held at the Sala Pelaires Gallery in Palma. As of that year, his presence at the collective exhibitions held at this gallery will go uninterrupted. He participates in two tributes to Joan Miró, one of his landmarks, in sa Pleta Freda (Son Servera, Majorca) and at the Palau Solleric in Palma; as well as at the "The Contemporary Art Exhibition in Spain", held in Vinuesa, Soria. In this year he holds his third solo exhibition at the Pepe Rebollo Gallery in Saragossa, where he presents a work which heralds the end of a period which he had initiated in 1973. Concerning this work the artist would later reflect in 1981 as he wrote his degree thesis: "... I conceived the work while I was painting it... The departure point was always an intuitive one... My great concern was to find a solution when painting... Those were the times of systematic attacks against art. Painting was looked upon unkindly. The critics praised the death of art... ".
1979 He holds an exhibition at the Quatre Gats Gallery in Palma. It is a selection of the work pertaining to his so called "white series", about which the artist would write: "... my works induced towards the lineal arrangement of all matter, in vertical and horizontal strips on an impregnating background which somehow allowed the original texture of the support to be seen. This meant a clear conception of the picture before its making... ". This exhibition confirmed him as one of the most solid values of the contemporary Majorcan artistic scenario. This is something which Joan Ferrer Miserol referred to in the catalogue, emphasizing on the artist’s work the "perfect adjustment between meaning and signifier, at a time when this was desperately needed and in a place where it was still needed more badly; it was a way leading –it can lead- to the falsification of authenticity, from disorientation to clairvoyance, from hysteria to serenity, from the anecdote to that which is essential".
1980 He moves his studio in Jovellanos street to an old warehouse in the Calatrava district of Palma. In October, he moves to Barcelona. There he will cultivate spontaneous and direct painting on paper. His works, which are fast free gestures, ressembling a kind of automatic writing, which after all is a pretext to exercise gestualism and loosen one’s hand, acquire vibrant colours which are often combined and give over to the dominant black tones which prevail throughout this period.
1981 His individual exhibition at the Rayuela gallery in Madrid has the guarantee of an introductory text by Josep Melià. The latter emphasized that "Ramon Canet’s writing is an anti literary manifesto (...) Canet pursues his personal quest to alphabetize space; his art is unglossed, it faces up to a superimposition of writings... It accumulates signs, alphabets, codes and overlaps technical and material colours. I can recall Durrell and his operating manual at the beginning of the second novel of the "Quartet of Alexandria". Canet creates different space units within a single time unit. He looks for kinetics which by pass geometries. He achieves rhythm, cadence and movement. These go from the pure strength in the spot, to the abrupt, emaciated and playful dialogue between gestures -the engine- and the stroke with its spatial stand ". His work has entered a new stage, marked by what the artist calls "the resurgence of the act of painting", an act which he will explain with these words: "At the end of the white process, the heavy matters begin to blend in with the gestured zones where the preparation of the canvass becomes transparent. I leave aside the heavy qualities, recover colour and confront the canvass. The painting has not been conceived till the moment of its execution ". He takes part in two collective exhibitions: "Mostra d'Art Contemporani dels Països Catalans" (Vic and Barcelona) and "Mostra d'Art Actual a Balears" (Palau Solleric in Palma and at the Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona). With his degree thesis “Process of accomplishment of my work”, his Art teacher’s Diploma is validated for that of Graduate in Fine Arts.
1982 He returns to Palma and sets up his studio in Son Serra. He holds an individual exhibition in Sa Pleta Freda (Son Servera, Majorca) where a selection of collages is shown for the first time. In them we find a contrast between the powerful gestualism of his brushstrokes with the pieces of paper capriciously trimmed in geometrical shapes. Together with Maria Carbonero, Josep Sitjar, Lluís Roca, Joan Oliver and Josep Verd, he sets up "Edicions 6a Obra Gràfica", a workshop located in the old district of Palma which illustrated and published lithographies and engravings in different techniques. Nowadays (May 2005), it continues its busy activity with Josep Sitjar, Maria Carbonero and Ramon Canet as its managers. It has published over a thousand works by different artists; in addition to Canet or Carbonero we can find Magí Baleta, Miquel Barceló, Joan Bennàssar, Jim Bird, Pep Coll, Joan Costa, Maurice Ducret, Ñaco Fabré, Rafa Forteza, José Hernández, Rafel Joan, Alícia Llabrés, Pep Llambias, Menéndez Rojas, Miquel Planas, Pere Quetglas "Xam", Josep Maria Sirvent, Antoni Socias or John Ulbricht, to name but a few. From the moment Edicions 6a started, Ramon Canet would intensify his graphical work, having already experimented with in previous years. He is granted a scholarship by the Ministry of Culture. He is commissioned by the Palma Town Council to make a mural for the façade of the cultural centre in the Polígono de Levante. He illustrates the book of poems Reixes d’aigua by J.M.Sala-Valldaura (Ed. Tafal).
1983 The gallery Joan Oliver "Maneu" opens in Palma with an individual exhibition of his work. He presents canvasses, collages, engravings and lithographies. The title of the exhibition, "Negres, tan sols"(Black only), aims at the predominant colour in his work at that time. Guillem Frontera, in El País (23-IV-1983) wrote about the exhibition: "the result is one of suggestive brilliance confirming that the artist has overcome the test which he had encountered when reducing to black his varied chromatic experiences, which have sometimes put him on the verge of madness. But this return to the origins might have another meaning; that of a disciplinary reaction against how colour was being trivialised by the yes-men of fashion who had given in to it unconditionally". In the exhibition catalogue, Biel Mesquida wrote a few lines about the mural at the cultural centre of the Polígono de Levante which also serve to explain his art at that time: "There we are able to find gesture, action, impulse, automatism performed with order, formalization, concept, containment and vice versa".
1984 He takes part in the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid together with the artists selected from the scholarship holders of the Ministry of Culture.
1985 He presents his work at Arco 85 (Madrid), with the Sala Pelaires Gallery, with whom he will take part at the fair on a regular basis until 1989. With the aforementioned gallery, he participates in Interarte (Valencia), where he will also continue until 1986. His art reflects a radicalization of gestures, they become heavier and bear an unusual strength, specially when it comes to the larger sized ones. At the same time, he begins to show a more poetic and intimate approach loaded with nuances, coloured lines and spots of great subtlety; it is mainly work on a smaller scale and on paper. Henceforth, except for a period when this exercise of poetic expression will be dominant, he will continue nurturing it, in his more intimate sphere, throughout his entire career. It is a kind of practice which he alternates with a more energetic kind of art.
1986 He holds an individual exhibition at the Sala Pelaires Gallery, presented by Josep Melià. The latter emphasized that, during the years when "the death certificate of abstract art had been registered..., Ramon Canet made art when almost everybody else made sceneries and created pretexts to continue with the ceremony of confusion. A grateful world recalls his attempts to save art from the indigestion of literature which it was drowning in". Valentí Puig wrote about the exhibition in Diario de Mallorca: "There is an outbreak of red, black and yellow. In their crudeness they show an unexpected flexibility (...) In his black and white series, Canet does not worry enthusiastically about the final sense of the shape and recovers the hieratic outline in the red and black series- canvasses and engravings. Canet is austere in the repertoire of his shapes making his energy gravitate - either or with an unfriendly gesture or a lively readiness- in the evidence of drama ". Beatriz Campo (El Día de Baleares) indicated that Ramon Canet walks alone "deepening in the abstraction, while his art became figurative. He had to fight before and continues doing so now, in a language which is often misunderstood... It is difficult to create when almost everything has been said and done". The aforementioned journalist quoted some of the artist’s words, who assured that he pursued abstract expressionism but not as a repetition of the North American movements. In this exhibition he showed for the first time some of his work in a format surpassing human scale. In them, the gestures have been simplified and they often appear in black or grey tones contrasting against a colourful background. He takes part in the collective exhibitions "Navegants de la Pintura", at the Calvià town council and "Paisatges, ara I aquí", staged at the School of Architects of the Balearics in Palma. Concerning this exhibition, Miguel Fernández-Cid defined his paintings as "measured compositions, compensated ones; there is never an excessive gesture, the refined use of colour... His art becomes more and more constructive and poetic".
1987 He sets up his studio in a great industrial warehouse on the Aragón street in Palma. He takes part in the "Obra gràfica-Mallorca" exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, National Chalcography (Madrid) 212 works are shown by the graphical department of Edicions 6a. He holds an exhibition with Maria Carbonero, Pep Canyellas and Menéndez Rojas at the Sala Gaspar Gallery in Barcelona. "Paisatges, ara i aquí" with the title of "Paisatges, set artistes mallorquins" is exhibited in the Palau Moja (Barcelona). He takes part in "Pintado en Mallorca" (Cultural Centre Conde Duque, Madrid). Francisco Rivas emphasized back then that in his work "a careful balance between emotion and reason, automatism and control is to be perceived. There is also a great sobriety of resources and a process of rigorous and severe self-selection in the workshop... The signs, the spots, the agile outlines act like latent metaphors in whose rythmical compass Ramon Canet tries to implicate the spectator without the help of the trade’s resources... ".
1988 He stages a solo exhibition at the Sala Pelaires Gallery which is presented by Pierre Restany (text follows). At that time, Catalina Serra (Última Hora) wrote: "In this exhibition Ramon Canet presents -within his personal unit- two different approaches towards himself which are quite surprisingly related to the formats: on the one hand they are works where there is a gestural predominance and austerity of colours; on the other, they are atmospheric works with deep spots of an almost pure colour. For Ramon Canet it is an adaptation to the larger formats - in the first case- which demands the presence of the entire body, and in a second place a greater control of the signs and space, by means of a more reduced format". He takes part in two collective exhibitions: "Col·lecció Cryns" (sa Llonja, Palma) and "Artistes actuals als fons municipals" (Palma City Council, Casal Balaguer).
EXPRESSION: A PROFILE OF A PROJECT ON STYLE
Pierre Restany
Analyzing Ramon Canet’s art is like delving into a weightless atmosphere. It is a world beyond any dimensions which could be a chink of sky or the entrance to a mysterious and disquieting cave where imaginary treasures are hidden. His recent works speak about the artist’s expressive power. The great black calligraphic signs which cover the surface of canvasses seem to float between two chinks which suggest, like a sigh, the breathing of the canvass. That delicate breathing leads us towards unfathomable depths. Nevertheless, this art is only abyssal in appearance. We are attracted to it because it is mysterious and it stimulates our curiosity without lighting the terrible fear for the unknown in our interior. Ramon Canet’s outlines are those of fluid communication. His signs have lost the arrogance of Pollock’s ones, the spectacular solemnity of Tàpies or the deaf aggressiveness of Millares. He is nearer to Miró’s undulating levity, although rarely reaching the apotheosis of ironic fantasy which constitutes the natural expression of the Catalan master’s spontaneous enchantment. "Certaines ganaches de 1988, qui figurant des cheminements linéaires sur fond bleu azur, atteignent avec aisance cette dimension de fantaisie libre mais elles demeurent une exception dans le cours du travail actuel". Guillem Frontera was quite accurate in 1983 when he defined the artist’s main problem, which is having to work "black as if it was the quintessence of all colours". Nowadays, five years on, black appears again like a catalyst of vision and the rulebook of his style. Without any doubt, it is mastering the technique what provides Ramon Canet’s calligraphic style with its most specific characteristic: one which enables it to place itself in space without totally occupying it; one of using those characteristics of writing which remain on piece of glass and a mirror and not those which like a mark made by a branding iron on your skin. This attitude which is free from the worries of assuming the mark of his own work, becomes manifest in the enormous freedom of his particular signs. These signs can walk and rock; they are interlaced or they fold upon themselves. We are fascinated by his ramblings because they show us the image of life itself, similar to the one offered by an electronic microscope when we observe microbial and cellular life. That is why these signs, these outlines, lack another more specific dimension which is not its own specific weight. You do not measure a virus by its length or weight, but by its energy. But beware! Nowadays, the metaphor of the virus might suffer from a cumbersome ambiguity. The bacteria fertilized by Ramon Canet’s virus are, in fact, the ferments of our own visual imagination and their function consists in transmitting part of the dream gathered in the volumes of our culture lost in the infinite. Ramon Canet’s pictorial virulence is pronounced by the amiable attraction of our eyes. The calligraphic itineraries show their secret accesses and the privileged areas where our eyes and thoughts are able to frolic. Everything has already been said about this formal expressionism of modern art. In the 1950s Europe and America were dominated by the irruption of abstract art which directly owed itself to gesture and physical movement. This kind of art reached its highest peaks, but it was also forced to pay the bill for the physical and mental usury of expression. Because of their lack of significance, these signs have managed to express nothing more than the routine of one’s hand and wrist. It is for this reason that it is particularly pleasant for me to discover, as Josep Melià did in 1981, "the anti literary" freshness of Ramon Canet’s writing. The distance which he sets against the literary reference, contributes in a determining manner to the comforting freedom of his style. It is comforting nowadays to be able to verify that such an expressive adventure has managed to find its peculiar shape and its enchantment, half way between mental elaboration and automatism in writing. In Ramon Canet’s case, the adventure of expression leads to an open, flexible language; I would even say that it is predestined that all luck befalls on him. And that is where the drawing outlines his very own project. Paris, 4th December 1988.
1989 He holds a solo exhibition in Hamburg (FRG) at the Levy gallery; in Stockholm (Sweden) at the Björn Olsson Gallery; and the Rudolf Schoen gallery (Berlin). His work is presented in the Sala Pelaires area at the Art Frankfurt fair, and he takes part in the exhibition "Edicions 6A. Obra Gràfica"(sa Llonja, Palma). The latter shows all the graphical work made by this publishing house up to that date.
1990 Canet holds an individual exhibition “Work on paper”, at the Sala Pelaires Gallery in Palma. Here he proves that what you use to paint on conditions the artist’s work: his lyricism is more powerful in this exhibition; these are pieces where a figurative and recognisable element is seen. We find that "six and four", which in fact acts like a graphical game for the artist, appears and repeats itself amidst the deep universes of colours, lines and gestures made with great subtlety. He also takes part at the opening of the Contemporary Cultural Centre Pelaires (Palma), and in "50 propostes pictòriques a Mallorca" (Calvià). During this year he is present at two international fairs: Arco 90 (with the Sala Gaspar Gallery) and at Saga (Paris).
1991 With the Sala Pelaires Gallery, he participates in Tokyo Art Expo. He takes part in two collective exhibitions: “Decouvertes 91” (Louise Wirth Gallery, Paris) and "Impresiones Españolas" (M.L. Wirth Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland). He was granted the title “Ad nominem” professor of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Sebastián. During his speech, "The Academy and creative freedom”, Ramon Canet called upon the academy’s responsibility to project itself towards “a fecund and generous understanding of all contemporary art ". He beckoned it to get involved in cultural life itself, to cooperate in revitalising culture whilst looking critically at new "academicism". Pere Quetglas "Xam", the artist and academic who spoke back, emphasized that "what one is about to do is more interesting than what one has already done. His art is the result of a constant fight against everything. Before glancing with his erudite and peculiar eyes and transferring his creation onto the canvass, all his aesthetic content is an incognito. Prior to his commitment with 20th century art he is aware of the fact that he cannot stop, that he must investigate in order to see if his ideas are valid and achieve that feeling of total satisfaction ".
1992 He holds an exhibition at the Maeght Gallery in Barcelona. The latter was presented by Maria Lluïsa Borràs. In a text entitled “Ramon Canet and the poetic shape" she wrote: "we find ourselves before an extremely demanding artist who has a remarkable inner volume; he is well equipped to express his personal poetry by means of abstract language (...) Canet is a creator of plastic shapes based on lines and colour. His lines have a life of their own: they impose their existence on the emptiness of the canvass where they hang like a cloud or a sigh. The lines can be docile with his hand, but they can become irritable, voluptuous, cruel, tender or full of humour; however, they always bear a poetic breath. Colour is nearly always voluptuous, sensual, magnificent and bizarrely pure at the same time. Seabed shades of blue, choral shades of red, prodigious shades of white; all of them emphasize the intensity of black". And, after saying that the artist had told her that after understanding Miró’s work, he had finally understood art, she adds: "No longer will it be possible to say that Joan Miró’s work did not bear any fruit; that it began and ended alone without having achieved a single successor. Ramon Canet, with his personal and unmistakable style has quivers in proudly considering himself that great artist’s spiritual son... ". This is the year when his career is reviewed for the very first time in the exhibition "Vint anys d’abstracció", at the Casal Solleric, Palma City Council. Once more Josep Melià presents the exhibition with a text which follows. The retrospective "Vint anys d’abstracció" takes part in the Burgerhaus Bornheim in Frankfurt. He also participates at the international fairs of Madrid (Arco, with M.L. Wirth Gallery), Chicago, Tokyo and Hong Kong (with the Sala Pelaires Gallery); in "Rutes Balears. Confluències culturals de la Mediterrània ", organized by the Conselleria de Cultura of the Balearic Government, held in Washington; in the exhibition "7 times 8" of the Contemporary Cultural Centre Pelaires in Palma, and he was chosen to take part in the exhibition "Encounter in Seville", when the EXPO 92 was staged there.
1993 He moves his studio to a large warehouse in the Son Fuster industrial estate (Son Cladera, Palma), where he still continues his work at present. For the occasion of the exhibition held at the Felix Gomez Gallery of Seville, the book "Amb molt de vermell, blau...", is published in a special edition of 50 copies, with lithographies by Ramon Canet and an analysis by Cristina Ros concerning his artistic work. In the following can be read: "It is a kind of writing with indecipherable signs. Sometimes it is light, uninhibited and melancholic; other times it is slow; others it is studied minutely, robotically; and others in an irritable or beastly fashion, with the force that gives over to the rage or the most implacable determination". On the other hand, a selection of his graphical work, engravings and lithographies was exhibited at the Urbe Gallery (Alcúdia, Majorca). About the graphical work, Josep Melià wrote: "Ramon Canet is the abstract artist whose language is most complete and who has the largest universe of personal signs that Majorca has given forth. But at the same time he is a man who has carried out a true revolution in the way in which graphical work in our small country is done... Through the severity in the accomplishment of his lithographies and engravings he has recovered the authentic techniques and driven away the swindling and the lies which are offered and which are nothing more than industrialist reproductions in making these multiple works. There is so much more dedication and effort from the artist making his works quite unique ". He takes part in ART ASIA (Hong Kong, Japan) and at ARCO 93 (Madrid). He designs a commemorative logo for the first centenary for the Ultima Hora newspaper and he participates in the exhibition held at sa Llonja which brought together one hundred artists who were considered representative this century.
1994 He holds an individual exhibition at the Charpa gallery in Valencia, where he shows gestual pieces on a larger scale. About the exhibition the following could be read in the Diario de Levante newspaper: "Ramon Canet’s art flows over his paintings as if following an itinerary which has been untiringly resumed. Each picture formalizes the stages of a route which does not end but is constantly reinitiated. With little on his back, mainly his worries concerning matter and colour, Ramon Canet quickly connects with gesture and is able to portray the abstract impressions of the pictorial cosmos in continuous transformation. The colours slide over the background; sometimes they are weightless and others solid in an attitude which always approaches and sets a distance; there is agreement and disagreement. With these performances, Canet gives the background in his paintings a particular autonomy in which events meet and determine their space. The surfaces, in an unending movement, demand their need to conclude atmospheric functions and urgently request quick fusions to deposit sediments and to undertake new missions". He participates at the international Miami fair, with the Sala Pelaires Gallery.
1995 Part of his work is centred on experimentation with collage. Here he usually confronts pieces of papers which are irregularly trimmed and often painted on to very elaborate backgrounds. This investigation of collage allows him to delve deeper into the possibilities of composition, the harmonies of colour and also into the contrast between shapes and background. These concerns are always present in his work. He starts a series of self-portraits on small canvasses, where the collage establishes a game of levels and dualities with an ingenuous figurative shape, only graphically outlined. A selection of his collages is exhibited at the collective exhibition “Majorca from Miró till the present”, at the Sollerod Museum in Denmark. He also participates in the exhibition "Mediterrània, una mar d'influències", at the Casal Solleric in Palma. His works are exhibited at ARCO 95 and Art Frankfurt, in the Sala Pelaires Gallery area.
1996 At his solo exhibition held at the Levy gallery in Hamburg, Canet presents large and small pieces, with collage acting like a resource of composition and predominant expression. In the catalogue presentation, Von Werner Krüger underlined the tradition surrounding this technique and the recovery which Ramon Canet had made. He had conjugated the classic postulates and instilled an unmistakable personal mark. He also holds a solo exhibition at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid, where he combines great gestual works on canvass and paper with collages. Presented by Guillem Frontera, the writer underlined that "one of the constant features in Ramon Canet’s work is the uninterrupted reflection upon itself... without resigning for that reason to an innate and consciously grown good taste in the best sense of the word: beauty has nothing degrading about it. This allows him to grow on a solid base, revisiting the geography of his artistic memory to widen, clarify or correct his bearings. Thus, a work by Canet looks like a previous work by Canet ". About the exhibition, Carlos García-Osuna wrote in the ABC section on art: "Now, the walls of the Pilar Parra Gallery show the new clarities of this artist who toys with colour as an informal reference or suggestion of magical scopes and where a plastic structure or a lyrical license can venture to perpetuate a pictorial message with remind us of Motherwell in the collages where painful achromatisms predominate. (...) Collages, which are apparently whimsical, enjoy a skimpy philosophy where order is what really matters. They can be combined in another way, but the manner in which Canet does so seem most fluid, elegant and one able to imply in the compositions a degree of subtle beauty which touches harmony ". In this same year, he is invited to take part in "10 of the Best", a programme organized by the Spanish Embassy in Jakarta (Indonesia), where he held an individual exhibition showing an extensive selection of the works he had made during his two-month stay on the island of Java. Besides presenting works in Art Frankfurt, he participates in the exhibition “Abstractions. Non figurative painting in the Balearic Islands”, held at sa Llonja in Palma.
1997 With a series of collages he takes part in the exhibition held in Brussels called "Spanish Artists at the European Parliament". In the catalogue the art critic Juan Manuel Bonet wrote: "Canet, who is also an accomplished lithographer, is the one who has the longest career. Tàpies has been fundamental in his teachings just as the proposals which were known as painting-painting in their own day; for him, the composite rigor has always been compatible with a sensible experience". He works for two months in New York, where he paints a ceiling of very large dimensions. He makes the logo for the Ultima Hora Club.
1998 He holds a solo exhibition of his latest paintings at the Galerie Scheffel in Bad Homburg (Germany). Here he gathers twenty pieces where gesture has been replaced by means of collages and levels of colour with free geometries. He participates in Art Cologne, Köln (Germany) under the auspices of Galerie Scheffel.
1999 Once more he holds a solo exhibition at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid where a selection of his more geometrical works, collages and paintings on a larger scale are shown. The art expert Miquel Alenyà wrote the catalogue prologue and stated: "Canet’s work is orderly and structured; it is performed with the skill of an old craftsman and constructed with the ability of great talent, especially aimed at affecting, provoking enjoyment and creating aesthetic pleasure. He also looks for the rational suggestion as a means of developing later processes of aesthetic emotion (...) 25 years after starting his career Canet offers an art which is solid, sober, extraordinarily expressive, renewed and impregnated with wise new ideas. The artist has reached a point of maturity where he achieves maximum expression with minimum resources. This simplicity does not only reduce, but also deepens the complexity of the universe that his work explores. His art, conceived from an accurate vision of the present world, of its necessities and ambitions, is aimed at those who seek emotion and spiritual pleasures. This art is well made, elaborated and constructed. It speaks of long working hours, of prolonged sessions of silence, tension and experiences kneaded with dedication and tenacity". In an interview granted to Ultima Hora newspaper the artist stated: "I believe that painting is a personal adventure and I carry on doing my work, I continue evolving because it is impossible for evolution not to exist. The artist has the obligation of doing things well and of being aware of his limitations too". He points out that in his work he uses all the resources that art offers him: "What interests me is working with absolute freedom and what would seem stupid to me would be to reject any resource. If now I find myself in a more geometrical moment, that does not mean that I have rejected gesture; I never abandon anything. What I do is incorporate things to the painting ". Next he holds an exhibition at the Felix Gomez Gallery in Seville. There is a selection of his most recent paintings there. In addition, he presents a selection of his latest paintings and engravings at the Matthias Kühn Foundation, thereby opening this space in the old part of Palma. In an interview granted to Diari de Balears concerning this exhibition he stated: "Worrying about proportions is basic. Also about subtleties: the stand, the format, the type of surface on which it is painted... A picture can lose its interest because of subtle issues". He participates in the collective exhibition “Itineraris damunt paper. El Dibuix en la plàstica contemporània a Mallorca”, which begins a long travelling exhibition in the Torre de ses Puntes in Manacor (Majorca). A very large canvass is exhibited at ARCO 99, amongst a selection of acquisitions by the AENA Foundation; this piece would later be placed at the new airport of Son Sant Joan de Palma de Mallorca. His work is chosen and exhibited at the VI Mostra Union FENOSA, in A Coruña (Galicia, Spain).
2000 The Government of the Balearic Islands spurs on a revision covering Canet’s three decades of artistic work by organizing an important individual exhibition in the Gothic building of Sa Llonja (Palma). This exhibition is included in the programme "Trajectòries, from 1970 to 2000". Hundreds of pieces, canvasses, papers and collages are exhibited, mainly large scale pieces. These show an evolution defined by Guillem Frontera in the catalogue as "the path of the pendulum", where "Ramon Canet’s art has become, and now we enjoy enough perspective, a swinging movement between chaos the order; there is also a struggle to take that explosive dispersion of chaos to some kind of order allowing for a better understanding of ourselves" (text reproduced in the annex, p). This movement allows the artist to go forward recovering his own lexicon, with a clear tendency towards its purification and for the sake of a greater spirituality. Concerning the exhibition, Miquel Alenyà ("Balears Cultural", Diari de Balears) wrote: "His option as creator has adjusted to a sort of austere, polished and essentialist way of making things. This has led him to reduce contents, to suppress anecdotes, to avoid descriptions, to flee from narrations. He has never wanted to tell us anything in a picture and he has always tried to make his art a purely plastic expression, aimed at creating beauty and arousing emotions (...) Canet makes use of a history of art which is well-known and recognized; one which he puts under an intense process of internalization, built upon critical analysis, revision and personal assimilation. Miró, Tàpies, Motherwell, Kline, Malèvitx, Klee, Mondrian, Rothko, and also Picasso, Gris, Braque amongst others have all been studied and investigated by the artist, who is amongst those artists who praise themselves for having extracted art from their interior (...) Canet says that making a synthesis of tradition is a way of becoming original". On the other hand, Joan Carles Gomis (Ultima Hora) stated: "one would say that Canet has insisted on painting one piece only, but always in a different way; this is a more healthy exercise than the one followed by other artists who are obstinate on painting different pieces always in the same boring fashion. Thus, the artist has felt seduced by the freshness of gesture, by the forcefulness of colour, the constructive rigor or the textural qualities; but very often almost all these principles converge in one same piece -although at certain moments they have predominated over others-. In any case, nothing in this art appears by chance ". Pilar Ribal (El Mundo/El Día de Baleares) believed: “Only by the mastery of his drawing, the elegance (or the ignited passion whereupon he manages and arranges the outline, by the subtlety of his textures and the careful depth of some of his spaces; only by the balance of the compositions, the wise use of collage or his innate sense of proportion, light and colour; only by his moderate valour whereupon he has been put under that swinging movement between "the hurriedly chaotic thing" and the necessarily "ordered" (which categorises and distinguishes his work in Guillem Frontera’s words) which we will relate to the complementary duality. Thus Ramon Canet should be considered among our most consistent and coherent present day artists". Biel Amer ("Bellver", Diario de Mallorca) emphasized "that inner heartbeat" found in his paintings: "The interior of Canet’s pictures, that is to say, what does not make up part of the external bustle; what has been coined as the "kitchen" of artistic work, is extremely solid. Many pictures of the time, and later ones, have neglected the work at the base; that inner heartbeat; and the result has been the canalization of the abstract thing. In Ramon Canet abstraction is pure formalism, because the interior is governed by rules which make it possible for such gesture to express the artist’s objectives". Juan Carlos Rego wrote about this interest concerning the background for a work of art in (Arte y Parte): "Without showing any interest for the naturalistic or anecdotal elements, his paintings are constructed towards the interior and it is from this perspective where sensitive and emotional questions of great interest stem. His works are independent organizations as far as their chromatic and material values are concerned". In this year, he makes the bookcover for "Poetes de Majorca per la Llengua", promoted by Joves de Mallorca per la Llengua and published by Documenta Balear (Palma), with the participation of 105 old and new poets alike. He participates in the retrospective graphical work exhibition of “Taller 6a” at the Sa Nostra Cultural Centre in Palma and also in the collective exhibition "Divaneos. Homenaje a Sigmund Freud" held at the Casal Balaguer in Palma.
2001 He holds a solo exhibition at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid, where he presents large sized fabrics and papers. Here the purification which the compositions of his collages, gestures and colours have experienced is obvious. About this exhibition, Carlos Garcia-Osuna (Tiempo) wrote a long article called: "Ramon Canet, a creator always on the limits", where he stated: "Although Canet does not have any excessive doubts about his plastic task, there are moments when he feels that he is on the edge of the abyss, on the brink of madness; but in the end geometry separates him nearly always from chaos placing him in a garden that does not have to be that of Academes... although nobody questions his geometrical knowledge, or his capacity to lock up the most rational elements within limits which cannot be removed, but that it is in this apparent geometrical coldness that his feelings are embodied; spaces where the painting is still nourished by the most human of thrusts". In this same article, he adds some of the artist’s declarations: "If I had to define my present language, I would say that these compositions are gestural, more spontaneous, and closer to a conceptual alphabet; the chromaticisms of immediately prior times, where blue and black shades predominate and enthusiastic red shades invade the surface of the canvasses". On the other hand, J.H. Miranda (El Punto de las Artes) wrote: "A line which during the 1990s has been aiming at alternating those irregular and vertical lines of colour, where intense indigos are mixed next to shades of black and white or replacing white by shades of ochre; the result of a lyricism deeply imbued in the Mediterranean or that third, delicate and intimate stage where three types of paper are used to construct a fine inner landscape". He holds a small individual exhibition at the Veterinary School of the Balearic Islands HQ, where he presents a series of papers which reflect the most lyrical aspect of his paintings. He presents his works at ARCO 01, under the auspices of the Pilar Parra Gallery.
2002 He is awarded the Xam-Rotary Club Palma Ramon Llull prize (1st Series). About this award the artist stated (Diario de Mallorca): "Xam was the first to show any interest in my work when I was very young; and he encouraged me to carry on. I held my first individual exhibition in his gallery. For all these and other reasons, this prize has a very special meaning to me". Several large canvasses and a series of papers comprise the exhibition "Desaïllaments" organized by the Education and Culture Department of the Government of the Balearic Islands and organised by Guillem Frontera and held at the Centre d'Art Santa Mònica (Barcelona); at the Cervantes Institute in Rome and at the Bethania Cultural Centre in Berlin, together with the work of 17 artists from the Balearic Islands. He exhibits a series of collages in ARCO 02 in the Pilar Parra Gallery area. His work is exhibited in the collective “Mediterráneo y balear”, at the Juan Manuel Lumbreras Gallery in Bilbao together with Miquel Barceló, Joan Bennàssar, Maria Carbonero, Pep Coll, Rafa Forteza, Matias Quetglas or Antoni Socias, amongst others. A large canvass of black and blue geometry -extremely purified- is in shown at the collective exhibition "Llum + Llum", which inaugurates an exhibition at Son Tugores in Alaró (Majorca). Over fifty artists from the Balearic Islands or connected to them gathered here. He takes part in the collective "Beau Geste", held at the Michael Dunev Gallery de Torroella de Montgrí (Gerona) together with Joaquin Chancho, Juan Manuel Ciria, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Ricardo Mazal, Manfred Vogel and Miguel Ibáñez. With Maria Carbonero and Joan Bennàssar, he completes the exhibition "Tres miradas" held at the Marimon Gallery in Can Picafort (Majorca). That same year he takes part in a sample where the twenty years of graphical work by Taller 6a are reviewed. He takes part in the exhibition "Donaciones de obra gráfica a la Biblioteca Nacional de España, 1993-1997. Homenaje a Carmen García-Margallo", held at the exhibition hall of the National Library, in Madrid. He illustrates the book of poems El cromatisme dels mots, de Antònia Arbona (El Tall Editorial).
2003 He exhibits his most recent works at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid. His paintings have still gone one step further in his purification process. Fields of intense colour spread over large canvasses directing the spectator’s eye towards the abysmal depths, whilst inviting him/her to contemplate his/her spirit. His papers still retain the artist’s vigorous gesture, although their outline has also been simplified. In this sense, M. Perales believed (Tiempo): "With very few elements, only colour - which goes from intense shades of red, the tints of black and infinite white to blue vibrant shades -, gesture -more mental than spontaneous- and the constant work of pictorial matter, Ramon Canet has performed works heavily loaded with deep spirituality". On the other hand, Maria García Yelo (Blanco y Negro Cultural, ABC) wrote: "the nine pieces which are exhibited on this occasion, made between 2001 and 2003, represent a further step in two tempos, of Canet’s aesthetic evolution. In this set of works -vinyl on paper or canvass, large scale pieces insist on studying the tension between positive and negative spaces, emptiness and bountifulness, the change produced between the pieces of gestural nature, in which several pictorial levels follow one another, and other more recent ones where the gesture is smoothed out and remains beneath the simple geometrical structures. Nevertheless, while his compositions tend towards stylization and the pitch is reduced - in his latest pieces the palette is limited to two or three pure colours; they are extremely contrasted ranges-, they increase the density and intensity of the pictorial matter ". In an interview with Antoni Planas (Ultima Hora), the artist said: "I seek perfection through formal simplification". And he defined his latest pieces: "They are pictures which represent shapes locked within another space. Rectangles within another rectangle (...) I am interested in seeing how matter grows as the picture evolves. Every day I make fewer concessions to language. I want it to be simpler but deeper. My intention is that my pictures contain only what is essential. I need my painting to encourage contemplation, to discover what has a greater significance". He makes the logo for the publication of the SPIB (Union of Journalists of the Balearic Islands). His work is part of the exhibition “De Montparnasse a la idea pura. Viaje por las vanguardias del s. XX en la Colección Serra” in Kubo, Kutxa Espacio del Arte, del Kursaal de Donostia. He also takes part in two more collective exhibitions "“Munú degustación” by the Michael Dunev Gallery de Torroella de Montgrí (Gerona) and in “Colectiva de verano” by the Marimon Gallery in Can Picafort (Majorca). Together with a group of thirty artists, he makes a series of silk screen prints to help palliate the "Prestige" tanker disaster and more specifically to help restore and build the Museum Man de Camariñas (Galicia), with a travelling exhibition called "Per Man, per Galícia".
2004 His work takes part in the exhibition "Es Baluard, año 0", a collective opening exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Contemporary Art in Palma, Es Baluard. Together with works by Miró, Baselitz, Oppenheim, Plessi, Lyonel Feininger, Lawrence Carroll, Tim Noble & Sue Webster or Alex Katz, he participates in the exhibition "Artseasons", in Cas Pellers of Binissalem (Majorca). He is also present at the collective opening exhibition at the Fran Reus Gallery in Palma, in an exhibition at Can Janer in Inca (Majorca), and in the exhibition "5 anys, 10 artistes", at the Marimon Gallery in Can Picafort (Majorca). He takes part in ARCO 04 and at the Contemporary Art Fair in Torino (Italy), with the Pilar Parra Gallery. He makes two large series of engravings at Dan Benveniste’s workshop in Madrid; these were commissioned by "Arte y Natura". He designs the logo for the Institit d'Estudis Baleàrics (IEB). He illustrates the collection of poems “Cants i encants” by Josep Piera and published by Ensiola Editorial (Muro, Majorca).
2005 He holds an individual exhibition at Can Fondo, Alcúdia (Majorca), organized by the Alcúdia Town Council. The poet Francesc Verdú presented the catalogue. At the exhibition, a dozen large canvasses and papers were exhibited; rectangles within other rectangles, ovals and gestures of great forcefulness in their outline. The artist has reduced the elements of his work and achieved a spiritual essence. The study of the composition, the appropriate treatment of the subject, the search for colours vibrating in their depths and the incidence of a gesture which is both an expression of force and moderation, characterize his present work. Concerning this exhibition, Guillem Frontera in an article published in Diari de Balears called "the business of living" said: "At a time of fullness, Ramon Canet appears as an inevitable artist, for whom commitment with art is an enthusiastic fatality and, in any case, the only way of embodying this way of life. Mellow and classical, calmly contemporary, the artist has been building a work from its very conception; he has enriched it with the most valuable nutrients offering his wide, cultural and artistic panorama; he has protected it against the dangers of production, and now he sees it mature upon a stage where radicalisms do not require from any shrills". He takes part in Anniversary of the Addaya Gallery exhibition in Alaró (Mallorca).
It will continue
1965-69 Whilst studying for his baccalaureate, he attends the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma.
1969 He enters the Higher School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona. He studies Art there until 1974. He participates in the XXVIII Hall of Autumn organised by the Fine Arts Circle in Palma, and in theVIII International Art Contest in Pollença. These works, which belong to his first period, fit in with the local tradition of landscapes, still life and portraits.
1970-72 He takes part in the collective exhibition of the group "Bes". This was held at the Rincón del Artista (Artist’s Corner) in Palma (1970). In this exhibition and together with other artists on the island, his works during these years reflect new approaches which are not free from certain influences of the new Catalonian figuration at that time.
1973 He holds his first individual exhibition at the Ariel gallery in Palma. In the opening text, Josep M. Palau i Camps observed that his works were "... obviously disturbed, distorted, but still faithful to a certain kind of figurative tendency... ". It is a transition period where the first rough attempts towards abstraction are revealed. During the month of August he participates in the collective exhibition "Ensenya 1", at the gallery Quatre Gats in Palma and makes what is to be known as his one and only incursion into conceptual language.
1974 He ends his studies in art at the School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi. He settles in Palma and takes part in two collective exhibitions: "Art Jove from Majorca" and "Art Avui in Majorca". He has his first art studio in Jovellanos street in Palma and teaches art at San José Obrero Secondary School.
1976 His second individual exhibition takes place at the Museum of Majorca in Palma. By now he has abandoned figurative language and, as Miquel Seguí Aznar underlined in the exhibition catalogue, begun to make a deep incursion into the work of gesture and matter, "in a progressive simplification, which always bears a noticeable intuitive nature which is in any case, a constant feature in all his works". He participates in two collective exhibitions: "Art Jove from Majorca" and another at the Quatre Gats gallery.
1977 He decides to dedicate all his efforts to art and quits teaching. He makes the cover for the Xicraini book of poems by Andreu Vidal.
1978 For the very first time he takes part in the collective summer exhibition held at the Sala Pelaires Gallery in Palma. As of that year, his presence at the collective exhibitions held at this gallery will go uninterrupted. He participates in two tributes to Joan Miró, one of his landmarks, in sa Pleta Freda (Son Servera, Majorca) and at the Palau Solleric in Palma; as well as at the "The Contemporary Art Exhibition in Spain", held in Vinuesa, Soria. In this year he holds his third solo exhibition at the Pepe Rebollo Gallery in Saragossa, where he presents a work which heralds the end of a period which he had initiated in 1973. Concerning this work the artist would later reflect in 1981 as he wrote his degree thesis: "... I conceived the work while I was painting it... The departure point was always an intuitive one... My great concern was to find a solution when painting... Those were the times of systematic attacks against art. Painting was looked upon unkindly. The critics praised the death of art... ".
1979 He holds an exhibition at the Quatre Gats Gallery in Palma. It is a selection of the work pertaining to his so called "white series", about which the artist would write: "... my works induced towards the lineal arrangement of all matter, in vertical and horizontal strips on an impregnating background which somehow allowed the original texture of the support to be seen. This meant a clear conception of the picture before its making... ". This exhibition confirmed him as one of the most solid values of the contemporary Majorcan artistic scenario. This is something which Joan Ferrer Miserol referred to in the catalogue, emphasizing on the artist’s work the "perfect adjustment between meaning and signifier, at a time when this was desperately needed and in a place where it was still needed more badly; it was a way leading –it can lead- to the falsification of authenticity, from disorientation to clairvoyance, from hysteria to serenity, from the anecdote to that which is essential".
1980 He moves his studio in Jovellanos street to an old warehouse in the Calatrava district of Palma. In October, he moves to Barcelona. There he will cultivate spontaneous and direct painting on paper. His works, which are fast free gestures, ressembling a kind of automatic writing, which after all is a pretext to exercise gestualism and loosen one’s hand, acquire vibrant colours which are often combined and give over to the dominant black tones which prevail throughout this period.
1981 His individual exhibition at the Rayuela gallery in Madrid has the guarantee of an introductory text by Josep Melià. The latter emphasized that "Ramon Canet’s writing is an anti literary manifesto (...) Canet pursues his personal quest to alphabetize space; his art is unglossed, it faces up to a superimposition of writings... It accumulates signs, alphabets, codes and overlaps technical and material colours. I can recall Durrell and his operating manual at the beginning of the second novel of the "Quartet of Alexandria". Canet creates different space units within a single time unit. He looks for kinetics which by pass geometries. He achieves rhythm, cadence and movement. These go from the pure strength in the spot, to the abrupt, emaciated and playful dialogue between gestures -the engine- and the stroke with its spatial stand ". His work has entered a new stage, marked by what the artist calls "the resurgence of the act of painting", an act which he will explain with these words: "At the end of the white process, the heavy matters begin to blend in with the gestured zones where the preparation of the canvass becomes transparent. I leave aside the heavy qualities, recover colour and confront the canvass. The painting has not been conceived till the moment of its execution ". He takes part in two collective exhibitions: "Mostra d'Art Contemporani dels Països Catalans" (Vic and Barcelona) and "Mostra d'Art Actual a Balears" (Palau Solleric in Palma and at the Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona). With his degree thesis “Process of accomplishment of my work”, his Art teacher’s Diploma is validated for that of Graduate in Fine Arts.
1982 He returns to Palma and sets up his studio in Son Serra. He holds an individual exhibition in Sa Pleta Freda (Son Servera, Majorca) where a selection of collages is shown for the first time. In them we find a contrast between the powerful gestualism of his brushstrokes with the pieces of paper capriciously trimmed in geometrical shapes. Together with Maria Carbonero, Josep Sitjar, Lluís Roca, Joan Oliver and Josep Verd, he sets up "Edicions 6a Obra Gràfica", a workshop located in the old district of Palma which illustrated and published lithographies and engravings in different techniques. Nowadays (May 2005), it continues its busy activity with Josep Sitjar, Maria Carbonero and Ramon Canet as its managers. It has published over a thousand works by different artists; in addition to Canet or Carbonero we can find Magí Baleta, Miquel Barceló, Joan Bennàssar, Jim Bird, Pep Coll, Joan Costa, Maurice Ducret, Ñaco Fabré, Rafa Forteza, José Hernández, Rafel Joan, Alícia Llabrés, Pep Llambias, Menéndez Rojas, Miquel Planas, Pere Quetglas "Xam", Josep Maria Sirvent, Antoni Socias or John Ulbricht, to name but a few. From the moment Edicions 6a started, Ramon Canet would intensify his graphical work, having already experimented with in previous years. He is granted a scholarship by the Ministry of Culture. He is commissioned by the Palma Town Council to make a mural for the façade of the cultural centre in the Polígono de Levante. He illustrates the book of poems Reixes d’aigua by J.M.Sala-Valldaura (Ed. Tafal).
1983 The gallery Joan Oliver "Maneu" opens in Palma with an individual exhibition of his work. He presents canvasses, collages, engravings and lithographies. The title of the exhibition, "Negres, tan sols"(Black only), aims at the predominant colour in his work at that time. Guillem Frontera, in El País (23-IV-1983) wrote about the exhibition: "the result is one of suggestive brilliance confirming that the artist has overcome the test which he had encountered when reducing to black his varied chromatic experiences, which have sometimes put him on the verge of madness. But this return to the origins might have another meaning; that of a disciplinary reaction against how colour was being trivialised by the yes-men of fashion who had given in to it unconditionally". In the exhibition catalogue, Biel Mesquida wrote a few lines about the mural at the cultural centre of the Polígono de Levante which also serve to explain his art at that time: "There we are able to find gesture, action, impulse, automatism performed with order, formalization, concept, containment and vice versa".
1984 He takes part in the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid together with the artists selected from the scholarship holders of the Ministry of Culture.
1985 He presents his work at Arco 85 (Madrid), with the Sala Pelaires Gallery, with whom he will take part at the fair on a regular basis until 1989. With the aforementioned gallery, he participates in Interarte (Valencia), where he will also continue until 1986. His art reflects a radicalization of gestures, they become heavier and bear an unusual strength, specially when it comes to the larger sized ones. At the same time, he begins to show a more poetic and intimate approach loaded with nuances, coloured lines and spots of great subtlety; it is mainly work on a smaller scale and on paper. Henceforth, except for a period when this exercise of poetic expression will be dominant, he will continue nurturing it, in his more intimate sphere, throughout his entire career. It is a kind of practice which he alternates with a more energetic kind of art.
1986 He holds an individual exhibition at the Sala Pelaires Gallery, presented by Josep Melià. The latter emphasized that, during the years when "the death certificate of abstract art had been registered..., Ramon Canet made art when almost everybody else made sceneries and created pretexts to continue with the ceremony of confusion. A grateful world recalls his attempts to save art from the indigestion of literature which it was drowning in". Valentí Puig wrote about the exhibition in Diario de Mallorca: "There is an outbreak of red, black and yellow. In their crudeness they show an unexpected flexibility (...) In his black and white series, Canet does not worry enthusiastically about the final sense of the shape and recovers the hieratic outline in the red and black series- canvasses and engravings. Canet is austere in the repertoire of his shapes making his energy gravitate - either or with an unfriendly gesture or a lively readiness- in the evidence of drama ". Beatriz Campo (El Día de Baleares) indicated that Ramon Canet walks alone "deepening in the abstraction, while his art became figurative. He had to fight before and continues doing so now, in a language which is often misunderstood... It is difficult to create when almost everything has been said and done". The aforementioned journalist quoted some of the artist’s words, who assured that he pursued abstract expressionism but not as a repetition of the North American movements. In this exhibition he showed for the first time some of his work in a format surpassing human scale. In them, the gestures have been simplified and they often appear in black or grey tones contrasting against a colourful background. He takes part in the collective exhibitions "Navegants de la Pintura", at the Calvià town council and "Paisatges, ara I aquí", staged at the School of Architects of the Balearics in Palma. Concerning this exhibition, Miguel Fernández-Cid defined his paintings as "measured compositions, compensated ones; there is never an excessive gesture, the refined use of colour... His art becomes more and more constructive and poetic".
1987 He sets up his studio in a great industrial warehouse on the Aragón street in Palma. He takes part in the "Obra gràfica-Mallorca" exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, National Chalcography (Madrid) 212 works are shown by the graphical department of Edicions 6a. He holds an exhibition with Maria Carbonero, Pep Canyellas and Menéndez Rojas at the Sala Gaspar Gallery in Barcelona. "Paisatges, ara i aquí" with the title of "Paisatges, set artistes mallorquins" is exhibited in the Palau Moja (Barcelona). He takes part in "Pintado en Mallorca" (Cultural Centre Conde Duque, Madrid). Francisco Rivas emphasized back then that in his work "a careful balance between emotion and reason, automatism and control is to be perceived. There is also a great sobriety of resources and a process of rigorous and severe self-selection in the workshop... The signs, the spots, the agile outlines act like latent metaphors in whose rythmical compass Ramon Canet tries to implicate the spectator without the help of the trade’s resources... ".
1988 He stages a solo exhibition at the Sala Pelaires Gallery which is presented by Pierre Restany (text follows). At that time, Catalina Serra (Última Hora) wrote: "In this exhibition Ramon Canet presents -within his personal unit- two different approaches towards himself which are quite surprisingly related to the formats: on the one hand they are works where there is a gestural predominance and austerity of colours; on the other, they are atmospheric works with deep spots of an almost pure colour. For Ramon Canet it is an adaptation to the larger formats - in the first case- which demands the presence of the entire body, and in a second place a greater control of the signs and space, by means of a more reduced format". He takes part in two collective exhibitions: "Col·lecció Cryns" (sa Llonja, Palma) and "Artistes actuals als fons municipals" (Palma City Council, Casal Balaguer).
EXPRESSION: A PROFILE OF A PROJECT ON STYLE
Pierre Restany
Analyzing Ramon Canet’s art is like delving into a weightless atmosphere. It is a world beyond any dimensions which could be a chink of sky or the entrance to a mysterious and disquieting cave where imaginary treasures are hidden. His recent works speak about the artist’s expressive power. The great black calligraphic signs which cover the surface of canvasses seem to float between two chinks which suggest, like a sigh, the breathing of the canvass. That delicate breathing leads us towards unfathomable depths. Nevertheless, this art is only abyssal in appearance. We are attracted to it because it is mysterious and it stimulates our curiosity without lighting the terrible fear for the unknown in our interior. Ramon Canet’s outlines are those of fluid communication. His signs have lost the arrogance of Pollock’s ones, the spectacular solemnity of Tàpies or the deaf aggressiveness of Millares. He is nearer to Miró’s undulating levity, although rarely reaching the apotheosis of ironic fantasy which constitutes the natural expression of the Catalan master’s spontaneous enchantment. "Certaines ganaches de 1988, qui figurant des cheminements linéaires sur fond bleu azur, atteignent avec aisance cette dimension de fantaisie libre mais elles demeurent une exception dans le cours du travail actuel". Guillem Frontera was quite accurate in 1983 when he defined the artist’s main problem, which is having to work "black as if it was the quintessence of all colours". Nowadays, five years on, black appears again like a catalyst of vision and the rulebook of his style. Without any doubt, it is mastering the technique what provides Ramon Canet’s calligraphic style with its most specific characteristic: one which enables it to place itself in space without totally occupying it; one of using those characteristics of writing which remain on piece of glass and a mirror and not those which like a mark made by a branding iron on your skin. This attitude which is free from the worries of assuming the mark of his own work, becomes manifest in the enormous freedom of his particular signs. These signs can walk and rock; they are interlaced or they fold upon themselves. We are fascinated by his ramblings because they show us the image of life itself, similar to the one offered by an electronic microscope when we observe microbial and cellular life. That is why these signs, these outlines, lack another more specific dimension which is not its own specific weight. You do not measure a virus by its length or weight, but by its energy. But beware! Nowadays, the metaphor of the virus might suffer from a cumbersome ambiguity. The bacteria fertilized by Ramon Canet’s virus are, in fact, the ferments of our own visual imagination and their function consists in transmitting part of the dream gathered in the volumes of our culture lost in the infinite. Ramon Canet’s pictorial virulence is pronounced by the amiable attraction of our eyes. The calligraphic itineraries show their secret accesses and the privileged areas where our eyes and thoughts are able to frolic. Everything has already been said about this formal expressionism of modern art. In the 1950s Europe and America were dominated by the irruption of abstract art which directly owed itself to gesture and physical movement. This kind of art reached its highest peaks, but it was also forced to pay the bill for the physical and mental usury of expression. Because of their lack of significance, these signs have managed to express nothing more than the routine of one’s hand and wrist. It is for this reason that it is particularly pleasant for me to discover, as Josep Melià did in 1981, "the anti literary" freshness of Ramon Canet’s writing. The distance which he sets against the literary reference, contributes in a determining manner to the comforting freedom of his style. It is comforting nowadays to be able to verify that such an expressive adventure has managed to find its peculiar shape and its enchantment, half way between mental elaboration and automatism in writing. In Ramon Canet’s case, the adventure of expression leads to an open, flexible language; I would even say that it is predestined that all luck befalls on him. And that is where the drawing outlines his very own project. Paris, 4th December 1988.
1989 He holds a solo exhibition in Hamburg (FRG) at the Levy gallery; in Stockholm (Sweden) at the Björn Olsson Gallery; and the Rudolf Schoen gallery (Berlin). His work is presented in the Sala Pelaires area at the Art Frankfurt fair, and he takes part in the exhibition "Edicions 6A. Obra Gràfica"(sa Llonja, Palma). The latter shows all the graphical work made by this publishing house up to that date.
1990 Canet holds an individual exhibition “Work on paper”, at the Sala Pelaires Gallery in Palma. Here he proves that what you use to paint on conditions the artist’s work: his lyricism is more powerful in this exhibition; these are pieces where a figurative and recognisable element is seen. We find that "six and four", which in fact acts like a graphical game for the artist, appears and repeats itself amidst the deep universes of colours, lines and gestures made with great subtlety. He also takes part at the opening of the Contemporary Cultural Centre Pelaires (Palma), and in "50 propostes pictòriques a Mallorca" (Calvià). During this year he is present at two international fairs: Arco 90 (with the Sala Gaspar Gallery) and at Saga (Paris).
1991 With the Sala Pelaires Gallery, he participates in Tokyo Art Expo. He takes part in two collective exhibitions: “Decouvertes 91” (Louise Wirth Gallery, Paris) and "Impresiones Españolas" (M.L. Wirth Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland). He was granted the title “Ad nominem” professor of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Sebastián. During his speech, "The Academy and creative freedom”, Ramon Canet called upon the academy’s responsibility to project itself towards “a fecund and generous understanding of all contemporary art ". He beckoned it to get involved in cultural life itself, to cooperate in revitalising culture whilst looking critically at new "academicism". Pere Quetglas "Xam", the artist and academic who spoke back, emphasized that "what one is about to do is more interesting than what one has already done. His art is the result of a constant fight against everything. Before glancing with his erudite and peculiar eyes and transferring his creation onto the canvass, all his aesthetic content is an incognito. Prior to his commitment with 20th century art he is aware of the fact that he cannot stop, that he must investigate in order to see if his ideas are valid and achieve that feeling of total satisfaction ".
1992 He holds an exhibition at the Maeght Gallery in Barcelona. The latter was presented by Maria Lluïsa Borràs. In a text entitled “Ramon Canet and the poetic shape" she wrote: "we find ourselves before an extremely demanding artist who has a remarkable inner volume; he is well equipped to express his personal poetry by means of abstract language (...) Canet is a creator of plastic shapes based on lines and colour. His lines have a life of their own: they impose their existence on the emptiness of the canvass where they hang like a cloud or a sigh. The lines can be docile with his hand, but they can become irritable, voluptuous, cruel, tender or full of humour; however, they always bear a poetic breath. Colour is nearly always voluptuous, sensual, magnificent and bizarrely pure at the same time. Seabed shades of blue, choral shades of red, prodigious shades of white; all of them emphasize the intensity of black". And, after saying that the artist had told her that after understanding Miró’s work, he had finally understood art, she adds: "No longer will it be possible to say that Joan Miró’s work did not bear any fruit; that it began and ended alone without having achieved a single successor. Ramon Canet, with his personal and unmistakable style has quivers in proudly considering himself that great artist’s spiritual son... ". This is the year when his career is reviewed for the very first time in the exhibition "Vint anys d’abstracció", at the Casal Solleric, Palma City Council. Once more Josep Melià presents the exhibition with a text which follows. The retrospective "Vint anys d’abstracció" takes part in the Burgerhaus Bornheim in Frankfurt. He also participates at the international fairs of Madrid (Arco, with M.L. Wirth Gallery), Chicago, Tokyo and Hong Kong (with the Sala Pelaires Gallery); in "Rutes Balears. Confluències culturals de la Mediterrània ", organized by the Conselleria de Cultura of the Balearic Government, held in Washington; in the exhibition "7 times 8" of the Contemporary Cultural Centre Pelaires in Palma, and he was chosen to take part in the exhibition "Encounter in Seville", when the EXPO 92 was staged there.
1993 He moves his studio to a large warehouse in the Son Fuster industrial estate (Son Cladera, Palma), where he still continues his work at present. For the occasion of the exhibition held at the Felix Gomez Gallery of Seville, the book "Amb molt de vermell, blau...", is published in a special edition of 50 copies, with lithographies by Ramon Canet and an analysis by Cristina Ros concerning his artistic work. In the following can be read: "It is a kind of writing with indecipherable signs. Sometimes it is light, uninhibited and melancholic; other times it is slow; others it is studied minutely, robotically; and others in an irritable or beastly fashion, with the force that gives over to the rage or the most implacable determination". On the other hand, a selection of his graphical work, engravings and lithographies was exhibited at the Urbe Gallery (Alcúdia, Majorca). About the graphical work, Josep Melià wrote: "Ramon Canet is the abstract artist whose language is most complete and who has the largest universe of personal signs that Majorca has given forth. But at the same time he is a man who has carried out a true revolution in the way in which graphical work in our small country is done... Through the severity in the accomplishment of his lithographies and engravings he has recovered the authentic techniques and driven away the swindling and the lies which are offered and which are nothing more than industrialist reproductions in making these multiple works. There is so much more dedication and effort from the artist making his works quite unique ". He takes part in ART ASIA (Hong Kong, Japan) and at ARCO 93 (Madrid). He designs a commemorative logo for the first centenary for the Ultima Hora newspaper and he participates in the exhibition held at sa Llonja which brought together one hundred artists who were considered representative this century.
1994 He holds an individual exhibition at the Charpa gallery in Valencia, where he shows gestual pieces on a larger scale. About the exhibition the following could be read in the Diario de Levante newspaper: "Ramon Canet’s art flows over his paintings as if following an itinerary which has been untiringly resumed. Each picture formalizes the stages of a route which does not end but is constantly reinitiated. With little on his back, mainly his worries concerning matter and colour, Ramon Canet quickly connects with gesture and is able to portray the abstract impressions of the pictorial cosmos in continuous transformation. The colours slide over the background; sometimes they are weightless and others solid in an attitude which always approaches and sets a distance; there is agreement and disagreement. With these performances, Canet gives the background in his paintings a particular autonomy in which events meet and determine their space. The surfaces, in an unending movement, demand their need to conclude atmospheric functions and urgently request quick fusions to deposit sediments and to undertake new missions". He participates at the international Miami fair, with the Sala Pelaires Gallery.
1995 Part of his work is centred on experimentation with collage. Here he usually confronts pieces of papers which are irregularly trimmed and often painted on to very elaborate backgrounds. This investigation of collage allows him to delve deeper into the possibilities of composition, the harmonies of colour and also into the contrast between shapes and background. These concerns are always present in his work. He starts a series of self-portraits on small canvasses, where the collage establishes a game of levels and dualities with an ingenuous figurative shape, only graphically outlined. A selection of his collages is exhibited at the collective exhibition “Majorca from Miró till the present”, at the Sollerod Museum in Denmark. He also participates in the exhibition "Mediterrània, una mar d'influències", at the Casal Solleric in Palma. His works are exhibited at ARCO 95 and Art Frankfurt, in the Sala Pelaires Gallery area.
1996 At his solo exhibition held at the Levy gallery in Hamburg, Canet presents large and small pieces, with collage acting like a resource of composition and predominant expression. In the catalogue presentation, Von Werner Krüger underlined the tradition surrounding this technique and the recovery which Ramon Canet had made. He had conjugated the classic postulates and instilled an unmistakable personal mark. He also holds a solo exhibition at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid, where he combines great gestual works on canvass and paper with collages. Presented by Guillem Frontera, the writer underlined that "one of the constant features in Ramon Canet’s work is the uninterrupted reflection upon itself... without resigning for that reason to an innate and consciously grown good taste in the best sense of the word: beauty has nothing degrading about it. This allows him to grow on a solid base, revisiting the geography of his artistic memory to widen, clarify or correct his bearings. Thus, a work by Canet looks like a previous work by Canet ". About the exhibition, Carlos García-Osuna wrote in the ABC section on art: "Now, the walls of the Pilar Parra Gallery show the new clarities of this artist who toys with colour as an informal reference or suggestion of magical scopes and where a plastic structure or a lyrical license can venture to perpetuate a pictorial message with remind us of Motherwell in the collages where painful achromatisms predominate. (...) Collages, which are apparently whimsical, enjoy a skimpy philosophy where order is what really matters. They can be combined in another way, but the manner in which Canet does so seem most fluid, elegant and one able to imply in the compositions a degree of subtle beauty which touches harmony ". In this same year, he is invited to take part in "10 of the Best", a programme organized by the Spanish Embassy in Jakarta (Indonesia), where he held an individual exhibition showing an extensive selection of the works he had made during his two-month stay on the island of Java. Besides presenting works in Art Frankfurt, he participates in the exhibition “Abstractions. Non figurative painting in the Balearic Islands”, held at sa Llonja in Palma.
1997 With a series of collages he takes part in the exhibition held in Brussels called "Spanish Artists at the European Parliament". In the catalogue the art critic Juan Manuel Bonet wrote: "Canet, who is also an accomplished lithographer, is the one who has the longest career. Tàpies has been fundamental in his teachings just as the proposals which were known as painting-painting in their own day; for him, the composite rigor has always been compatible with a sensible experience". He works for two months in New York, where he paints a ceiling of very large dimensions. He makes the logo for the Ultima Hora Club.
1998 He holds a solo exhibition of his latest paintings at the Galerie Scheffel in Bad Homburg (Germany). Here he gathers twenty pieces where gesture has been replaced by means of collages and levels of colour with free geometries. He participates in Art Cologne, Köln (Germany) under the auspices of Galerie Scheffel.
1999 Once more he holds a solo exhibition at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid where a selection of his more geometrical works, collages and paintings on a larger scale are shown. The art expert Miquel Alenyà wrote the catalogue prologue and stated: "Canet’s work is orderly and structured; it is performed with the skill of an old craftsman and constructed with the ability of great talent, especially aimed at affecting, provoking enjoyment and creating aesthetic pleasure. He also looks for the rational suggestion as a means of developing later processes of aesthetic emotion (...) 25 years after starting his career Canet offers an art which is solid, sober, extraordinarily expressive, renewed and impregnated with wise new ideas. The artist has reached a point of maturity where he achieves maximum expression with minimum resources. This simplicity does not only reduce, but also deepens the complexity of the universe that his work explores. His art, conceived from an accurate vision of the present world, of its necessities and ambitions, is aimed at those who seek emotion and spiritual pleasures. This art is well made, elaborated and constructed. It speaks of long working hours, of prolonged sessions of silence, tension and experiences kneaded with dedication and tenacity". In an interview granted to Ultima Hora newspaper the artist stated: "I believe that painting is a personal adventure and I carry on doing my work, I continue evolving because it is impossible for evolution not to exist. The artist has the obligation of doing things well and of being aware of his limitations too". He points out that in his work he uses all the resources that art offers him: "What interests me is working with absolute freedom and what would seem stupid to me would be to reject any resource. If now I find myself in a more geometrical moment, that does not mean that I have rejected gesture; I never abandon anything. What I do is incorporate things to the painting ". Next he holds an exhibition at the Felix Gomez Gallery in Seville. There is a selection of his most recent paintings there. In addition, he presents a selection of his latest paintings and engravings at the Matthias Kühn Foundation, thereby opening this space in the old part of Palma. In an interview granted to Diari de Balears concerning this exhibition he stated: "Worrying about proportions is basic. Also about subtleties: the stand, the format, the type of surface on which it is painted... A picture can lose its interest because of subtle issues". He participates in the collective exhibition “Itineraris damunt paper. El Dibuix en la plàstica contemporània a Mallorca”, which begins a long travelling exhibition in the Torre de ses Puntes in Manacor (Majorca). A very large canvass is exhibited at ARCO 99, amongst a selection of acquisitions by the AENA Foundation; this piece would later be placed at the new airport of Son Sant Joan de Palma de Mallorca. His work is chosen and exhibited at the VI Mostra Union FENOSA, in A Coruña (Galicia, Spain).
2000 The Government of the Balearic Islands spurs on a revision covering Canet’s three decades of artistic work by organizing an important individual exhibition in the Gothic building of Sa Llonja (Palma). This exhibition is included in the programme "Trajectòries, from 1970 to 2000". Hundreds of pieces, canvasses, papers and collages are exhibited, mainly large scale pieces. These show an evolution defined by Guillem Frontera in the catalogue as "the path of the pendulum", where "Ramon Canet’s art has become, and now we enjoy enough perspective, a swinging movement between chaos the order; there is also a struggle to take that explosive dispersion of chaos to some kind of order allowing for a better understanding of ourselves" (text reproduced in the annex, p). This movement allows the artist to go forward recovering his own lexicon, with a clear tendency towards its purification and for the sake of a greater spirituality. Concerning the exhibition, Miquel Alenyà ("Balears Cultural", Diari de Balears) wrote: "His option as creator has adjusted to a sort of austere, polished and essentialist way of making things. This has led him to reduce contents, to suppress anecdotes, to avoid descriptions, to flee from narrations. He has never wanted to tell us anything in a picture and he has always tried to make his art a purely plastic expression, aimed at creating beauty and arousing emotions (...) Canet makes use of a history of art which is well-known and recognized; one which he puts under an intense process of internalization, built upon critical analysis, revision and personal assimilation. Miró, Tàpies, Motherwell, Kline, Malèvitx, Klee, Mondrian, Rothko, and also Picasso, Gris, Braque amongst others have all been studied and investigated by the artist, who is amongst those artists who praise themselves for having extracted art from their interior (...) Canet says that making a synthesis of tradition is a way of becoming original". On the other hand, Joan Carles Gomis (Ultima Hora) stated: "one would say that Canet has insisted on painting one piece only, but always in a different way; this is a more healthy exercise than the one followed by other artists who are obstinate on painting different pieces always in the same boring fashion. Thus, the artist has felt seduced by the freshness of gesture, by the forcefulness of colour, the constructive rigor or the textural qualities; but very often almost all these principles converge in one same piece -although at certain moments they have predominated over others-. In any case, nothing in this art appears by chance ". Pilar Ribal (El Mundo/El Día de Baleares) believed: “Only by the mastery of his drawing, the elegance (or the ignited passion whereupon he manages and arranges the outline, by the subtlety of his textures and the careful depth of some of his spaces; only by the balance of the compositions, the wise use of collage or his innate sense of proportion, light and colour; only by his moderate valour whereupon he has been put under that swinging movement between "the hurriedly chaotic thing" and the necessarily "ordered" (which categorises and distinguishes his work in Guillem Frontera’s words) which we will relate to the complementary duality. Thus Ramon Canet should be considered among our most consistent and coherent present day artists". Biel Amer ("Bellver", Diario de Mallorca) emphasized "that inner heartbeat" found in his paintings: "The interior of Canet’s pictures, that is to say, what does not make up part of the external bustle; what has been coined as the "kitchen" of artistic work, is extremely solid. Many pictures of the time, and later ones, have neglected the work at the base; that inner heartbeat; and the result has been the canalization of the abstract thing. In Ramon Canet abstraction is pure formalism, because the interior is governed by rules which make it possible for such gesture to express the artist’s objectives". Juan Carlos Rego wrote about this interest concerning the background for a work of art in (Arte y Parte): "Without showing any interest for the naturalistic or anecdotal elements, his paintings are constructed towards the interior and it is from this perspective where sensitive and emotional questions of great interest stem. His works are independent organizations as far as their chromatic and material values are concerned". In this year, he makes the bookcover for "Poetes de Majorca per la Llengua", promoted by Joves de Mallorca per la Llengua and published by Documenta Balear (Palma), with the participation of 105 old and new poets alike. He participates in the retrospective graphical work exhibition of “Taller 6a” at the Sa Nostra Cultural Centre in Palma and also in the collective exhibition "Divaneos. Homenaje a Sigmund Freud" held at the Casal Balaguer in Palma.
2001 He holds a solo exhibition at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid, where he presents large sized fabrics and papers. Here the purification which the compositions of his collages, gestures and colours have experienced is obvious. About this exhibition, Carlos Garcia-Osuna (Tiempo) wrote a long article called: "Ramon Canet, a creator always on the limits", where he stated: "Although Canet does not have any excessive doubts about his plastic task, there are moments when he feels that he is on the edge of the abyss, on the brink of madness; but in the end geometry separates him nearly always from chaos placing him in a garden that does not have to be that of Academes... although nobody questions his geometrical knowledge, or his capacity to lock up the most rational elements within limits which cannot be removed, but that it is in this apparent geometrical coldness that his feelings are embodied; spaces where the painting is still nourished by the most human of thrusts". In this same article, he adds some of the artist’s declarations: "If I had to define my present language, I would say that these compositions are gestural, more spontaneous, and closer to a conceptual alphabet; the chromaticisms of immediately prior times, where blue and black shades predominate and enthusiastic red shades invade the surface of the canvasses". On the other hand, J.H. Miranda (El Punto de las Artes) wrote: "A line which during the 1990s has been aiming at alternating those irregular and vertical lines of colour, where intense indigos are mixed next to shades of black and white or replacing white by shades of ochre; the result of a lyricism deeply imbued in the Mediterranean or that third, delicate and intimate stage where three types of paper are used to construct a fine inner landscape". He holds a small individual exhibition at the Veterinary School of the Balearic Islands HQ, where he presents a series of papers which reflect the most lyrical aspect of his paintings. He presents his works at ARCO 01, under the auspices of the Pilar Parra Gallery.
2002 He is awarded the Xam-Rotary Club Palma Ramon Llull prize (1st Series). About this award the artist stated (Diario de Mallorca): "Xam was the first to show any interest in my work when I was very young; and he encouraged me to carry on. I held my first individual exhibition in his gallery. For all these and other reasons, this prize has a very special meaning to me". Several large canvasses and a series of papers comprise the exhibition "Desaïllaments" organized by the Education and Culture Department of the Government of the Balearic Islands and organised by Guillem Frontera and held at the Centre d'Art Santa Mònica (Barcelona); at the Cervantes Institute in Rome and at the Bethania Cultural Centre in Berlin, together with the work of 17 artists from the Balearic Islands. He exhibits a series of collages in ARCO 02 in the Pilar Parra Gallery area. His work is exhibited in the collective “Mediterráneo y balear”, at the Juan Manuel Lumbreras Gallery in Bilbao together with Miquel Barceló, Joan Bennàssar, Maria Carbonero, Pep Coll, Rafa Forteza, Matias Quetglas or Antoni Socias, amongst others. A large canvass of black and blue geometry -extremely purified- is in shown at the collective exhibition "Llum + Llum", which inaugurates an exhibition at Son Tugores in Alaró (Majorca). Over fifty artists from the Balearic Islands or connected to them gathered here. He takes part in the collective "Beau Geste", held at the Michael Dunev Gallery de Torroella de Montgrí (Gerona) together with Joaquin Chancho, Juan Manuel Ciria, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Ricardo Mazal, Manfred Vogel and Miguel Ibáñez. With Maria Carbonero and Joan Bennàssar, he completes the exhibition "Tres miradas" held at the Marimon Gallery in Can Picafort (Majorca). That same year he takes part in a sample where the twenty years of graphical work by Taller 6a are reviewed. He takes part in the exhibition "Donaciones de obra gráfica a la Biblioteca Nacional de España, 1993-1997. Homenaje a Carmen García-Margallo", held at the exhibition hall of the National Library, in Madrid. He illustrates the book of poems El cromatisme dels mots, de Antònia Arbona (El Tall Editorial).
2003 He exhibits his most recent works at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid. His paintings have still gone one step further in his purification process. Fields of intense colour spread over large canvasses directing the spectator’s eye towards the abysmal depths, whilst inviting him/her to contemplate his/her spirit. His papers still retain the artist’s vigorous gesture, although their outline has also been simplified. In this sense, M. Perales believed (Tiempo): "With very few elements, only colour - which goes from intense shades of red, the tints of black and infinite white to blue vibrant shades -, gesture -more mental than spontaneous- and the constant work of pictorial matter, Ramon Canet has performed works heavily loaded with deep spirituality". On the other hand, Maria García Yelo (Blanco y Negro Cultural, ABC) wrote: "the nine pieces which are exhibited on this occasion, made between 2001 and 2003, represent a further step in two tempos, of Canet’s aesthetic evolution. In this set of works -vinyl on paper or canvass, large scale pieces insist on studying the tension between positive and negative spaces, emptiness and bountifulness, the change produced between the pieces of gestural nature, in which several pictorial levels follow one another, and other more recent ones where the gesture is smoothed out and remains beneath the simple geometrical structures. Nevertheless, while his compositions tend towards stylization and the pitch is reduced - in his latest pieces the palette is limited to two or three pure colours; they are extremely contrasted ranges-, they increase the density and intensity of the pictorial matter ". In an interview with Antoni Planas (Ultima Hora), the artist said: "I seek perfection through formal simplification". And he defined his latest pieces: "They are pictures which represent shapes locked within another space. Rectangles within another rectangle (...) I am interested in seeing how matter grows as the picture evolves. Every day I make fewer concessions to language. I want it to be simpler but deeper. My intention is that my pictures contain only what is essential. I need my painting to encourage contemplation, to discover what has a greater significance". He makes the logo for the publication of the SPIB (Union of Journalists of the Balearic Islands). His work is part of the exhibition “De Montparnasse a la idea pura. Viaje por las vanguardias del s. XX en la Colección Serra” in Kubo, Kutxa Espacio del Arte, del Kursaal de Donostia. He also takes part in two more collective exhibitions "“Munú degustación” by the Michael Dunev Gallery de Torroella de Montgrí (Gerona) and in “Colectiva de verano” by the Marimon Gallery in Can Picafort (Majorca). Together with a group of thirty artists, he makes a series of silk screen prints to help palliate the "Prestige" tanker disaster and more specifically to help restore and build the Museum Man de Camariñas (Galicia), with a travelling exhibition called "Per Man, per Galícia".
2004 His work takes part in the exhibition "Es Baluard, año 0", a collective opening exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Contemporary Art in Palma, Es Baluard. Together with works by Miró, Baselitz, Oppenheim, Plessi, Lyonel Feininger, Lawrence Carroll, Tim Noble & Sue Webster or Alex Katz, he participates in the exhibition "Artseasons", in Cas Pellers of Binissalem (Majorca). He is also present at the collective opening exhibition at the Fran Reus Gallery in Palma, in an exhibition at Can Janer in Inca (Majorca), and in the exhibition "5 anys, 10 artistes", at the Marimon Gallery in Can Picafort (Majorca). He takes part in ARCO 04 and at the Contemporary Art Fair in Torino (Italy), with the Pilar Parra Gallery. He makes two large series of engravings at Dan Benveniste’s workshop in Madrid; these were commissioned by "Arte y Natura". He designs the logo for the Institit d'Estudis Baleàrics (IEB). He illustrates the collection of poems “Cants i encants” by Josep Piera and published by Ensiola Editorial (Muro, Majorca).
2005 He holds an individual exhibition at Can Fondo, Alcúdia (Majorca), organized by the Alcúdia Town Council. The poet Francesc Verdú presented the catalogue. At the exhibition, a dozen large canvasses and papers were exhibited; rectangles within other rectangles, ovals and gestures of great forcefulness in their outline. The artist has reduced the elements of his work and achieved a spiritual essence. The study of the composition, the appropriate treatment of the subject, the search for colours vibrating in their depths and the incidence of a gesture which is both an expression of force and moderation, characterize his present work. Concerning this exhibition, Guillem Frontera in an article published in Diari de Balears called "the business of living" said: "At a time of fullness, Ramon Canet appears as an inevitable artist, for whom commitment with art is an enthusiastic fatality and, in any case, the only way of embodying this way of life. Mellow and classical, calmly contemporary, the artist has been building a work from its very conception; he has enriched it with the most valuable nutrients offering his wide, cultural and artistic panorama; he has protected it against the dangers of production, and now he sees it mature upon a stage where radicalisms do not require from any shrills". He takes part in Anniversary of the Addaya Gallery exhibition in Alaró (Mallorca).
It will continue
