Negative space plays an important role in the work of Carlos Morago, who paints his subjects framed around the emptiness of their worlds. The subjects are sequestered from the edges of the canvas, and yet that isolation provides a sense of mystery and even intimacy.
Flowers in vases and pill bottles on a table that are framed beneath a field of color, a lush street scene tucked past a white alleyway, a bright room framed by the shadowed doorway—these subjects are given a poetic presence through Morago’s delicate compositions. 
Ventana al Fondo, oil on wood, 35 x 57½"
“The process starts from a real model, from which I’m doing a personal structure of my own sensibility. It could be said that I change the reality until reaching a conceptual synthesis of my own subjective reality; trying to permeate the work with an intimacy, ordering the chaos in some way; making the emotion transmitted by the object prevail before the object itself,” he says. “Inspiration makes me approach simple themes, everyday objects that transmit beauty to me, inviting a reflective moment, silence.”
Callejón en Cadaqués, oil on wood, 23½ x 39"
This sense of reflective intimacy can be felt in a painting like Ventana al Fondo, a work that shows a simple view of a windowed wall of an apartment. The blinds are pulled partially down, mostly obscuring the view of adjacent apartment buildings. Almost the entirety of the painting is white, and the shapes are relatively uniform—from the panels of the window to the radiator at the base of the wall—and yet there is a closeness that can be felt among the forms and the uniformity of the color. 
Cortina Roja, oil on wood, 19½ x 27½"
In another work, titled Callejón en Cadaqués, the Spain-based painter uses walls and corners to frame a lovely scene in a white-walled street. “Cadaqués is a little village in the north of Costa Brava (Cataluña), in which, despite tourism and the passing of time, has been known to maintain its identity of a little fishermen village, where still today you can walk through its streets with white houses, carpeted by the slate gray of its pavement and upholstered in bougainvillea, displaying colors in the Mediterranean sun,” he says. “Cadaqués is well known in the world for being the place where Salvador Dalí lived most of his life.”
Tarro de Rosas, oil on wood, 19½ x 19½"
Morago’s new show opens November 12 at Principle Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia. He will be showing around 35 new works, many of them painted within the last two years. —
Principle Gallery
208 King Street • Alexandria, VA 22314
(703) 739-9326 • www.principlegallery.com
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