Xavier Robles de Medina
Gorillas in the Mountains of Southern Nigeria: World’s rarest great ape pictured with babies, BBC News, 9 July 2020

Those who have studied painting and drawing might recall being introduced to perspective drawing—an optical illusion where directional lines serve as tools to help translate the idea of a complex environment, onto a simple plain. With Robles de Medina’s Gorillas, we sense a depth of space and feel the workings of its one- point perspective, but get lost in the confusion of the jungle’s foliage. Just as the jungle has its own distinct rules, completely at odds with the logic of perspective drawing, our main clue for its depth in the painting is the receding scale of the
gorillas. The vanishing point is described entirely by the scaling of their forms, a kind of simile for the threat of this Great Ape’s extinction.

The source picture, taken by a camera trap in the Mbe mountains, is an extremely rare glimpse of this endangered sub-species. Local to a mountainous region in Nigeria that neighbours Cameroon, they are naturally wary of humans and rarely ever seen. However, the BBC article cited in the painting’s title provides positive news: “…the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) says this sighting raises hopes that the animals at risk of extinction are actually reproducing. A number of infant gorillas are visible in the shots…” There’s a twisted humour at play here —as Robles de Medina notes, the image was taken in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as human beings were (and still are) collectively retreating from public space.

That reference to human activity, and that of time slowed, also point to Robles de Medina’s process—the pace with which he meditates on an image. Spending months at a time slowly forming the image, this process is an integral part of the painting’s vernacular. In this way, the artist’s paint marks act as a kind of personal base unit for his own measurement of time, or rather, his performance of it. Perhaps it is that aspect of the picture being interpreted by the human hand, at a human pace, that transforms the digital, low resolution jpg into something more complex. Compared to the many contemporary technologies and approaches that can speed up art making, these works are particularly jarring. He has mentioned the uncompromising nature of the method used to make them to us many times and how there is no possibility for cutting corners. It is worth noting that Robles de Medina’s oeuvre is immensely wide-ranging, involving digital film montage, writing, and sculpture. The nature of his approach in these paintings suggests a deep desire to find meaning outside the digital realm.