// 2. Set of circumstances or gifts that impregnate our world to improve it in a way that is surprising and not always immediately understood.// 3. It is said of an instant in which a total, concrete understanding is reached or even the same illumination. Decisive, revealing moment.// 4. Era TheWelcome. // Expression to define a stage in humanity or in the life of a human being where balance, beauty, harmony, spiritual evolution and earthly wisdom prevail.// It is a thewelcome! Expression that defines a person who brings joy, beauty, wisdom and harmony to the lives of others. // I am like a thewelcome! // Expr. Fam. Used to define a state of balance between body, mind and spirit.

About the reality of the fantastic and the fantastic of reality. Notes to fly pen on the intention of Thewelcome.

For some time now I have been trying to propose other paths through metaphor. My creative purpose is to build a parallel universe that is plausible in itself, overflowing with symbols and meanings, and which finds solutions to the problems of this other side.

The fantastic hides in the reverse of the apparent, and from time to time, it appears before our eyes to remind us that we are also part of that existence that some (let’s remember Plato) baptized as “soul of the world”. We are part of that “other side”, which is practically inexplicable, but which we all feel and experience sometime or many times during our lives.

The fantastic, then, appears when we have the capacity to see the wonderful side of existence.

Throughout the history of humanity there have been real and fantastic beings (sages, heroes, superheroes, thinkers, gods, missionaries, ascended beings, revolutionaries, enlightened people, even politicians!) who have manifested in a physical and symbolic way many dreams or collective ideals.

Necessary beings who have helped humanity take another step in its evolution. The world always requires these characters, who release and purge the pressure caused by collective and/or mass unconsciousness.

Today these characters are still necessary, more than ever I would say, just when there is perhaps the greatest rejection or disbelief towards them. The discrediting of utopias and ideals is justified by the repeated failures of some leaders who, sometimes starting from a good idea, were blinded by the desire for power and the bad use of it.

Planet Earth and all humanity are living through moments of imbalance and change, of crisis. Many theories, studies and prophecies explain these current events, in different ways, but saying practically the same thing.

We’re going through a difficult time. That’s, at this point, kind of obvious.

In a drawing of mine from years ago, I rediscovered a faceless character in the third scene; he was wearing a black and white checkered jacket and was situated at the end of a path coming from the mountains.

Such a character seemed to observe the main scene from the silence.

Above his head, a statement surrounded his aura where it could be read: “I AM THEWELCOME”.

For some years now, I have been working on the unavoidable persecution of that character I have named THEWELCOME.

A being (object or moment) something elusive, polymorphic, eclectic, timeless, expected, necessary, surprising, good, transmuting, repairing, expansive, healing, nourishing, empathic, magical…and a long etc.

I want to get close to that character (moment or object) that carries that “good vibe”, to use a colloquial expression. A being that produces the same sensation of relief as a window to the outside, that brings fresh air and light to a dark and closed place.

A binding being of positive and constructive particles, an unequivocal being of goodness and union, of growth, expansion and consciousness.

That’s why, in this work, there is an open collaboration section where a random number of people, send a letter describing their most personal and authentic Thewelcome; because I believe that this character, among other things, must aspire to configure the sum of all our best wishes.

I am aware that reaching such an end is (for now) “practically” impossible. That is why, for the moment, I am working in this sort of cabinet of wonders, where all the works that make it up operate like surrounding satellites on this “Planet-Sun”.

I try to use the window or mirror of art to reflect and show our best side.

I defend conscious and responsible imagination as a revolutionary engine to provoke future and better realities.

(Well, let’s not forget that everything we have now and live has been imagined before).

Thewelcome emerges vigorously as a counterpoint to so much recalcitrant cynicism and frustrated intelligence. I believe that we all come to be “happy” in this world (understanding the word “happiness” as the result of a process where the soul finds its place). Intelligence, therefore, is a tool for finding ourselves, growing and realizing ourselves expansively, becoming what we really are.

With my work I seek that realization of the spirit. With love, humour, demand, a certain illusionism and some alchemy.

Thewelcome has, potentially, the ability to fix old, misguided systems with the intrinsic strength of the new.

I am aware of the duality to which I belong/mos, that in this paradigm there is no light without shadows, cold without heat, good without bad, but I also believe that proposals are needed that work strongly on the most positive and luminous part of this story. Especially in the world of contemporary art, which is full of self-referential, hermetic, elitist, if not morbid, empty, frivolous projects, and which has lost its direction considerably.

I believe that any expressive discipline should use language for the union and embrace between author and spectator, beyond the condition of the latter and not the contrary, which is usually the case. Language, on too many occasions, is shown to us as an indecipherable brick that separates us precisely from the meaning or background of the work.

I advocate a language of the heart, which is the true universal binder. Perhaps “culture” was born with that intention, but it is clear that on countless occasions it has separated us alarmingly. We should reflect on this.

They say that in variety lies taste, and for taste, colours. I could say that, with Thewelcome and all my other series, I’m betting on white: the sum of all the light colours.

José Luis Serzo. Madrid 2005-2009