Alfonso Rangel Guerra 
September 12, 2001 

¿Where does the work of Rafael Teniente come from?

The question arises in front of the beautiful works made with the techniques of carbon and graphite drawing. The answer is not obvious nor evident; this work comes from deep within the artist. To establish this origin we need to recognize that both the craft and the conversation through strokes and movements of the hand over the surface of the paper is all one and the same. And something more. It does not matter that in this work we recognize classical expressions from another time, mainly the Renaissance. The art of Teniente certainly moves through those testimonials of the past but the final result is his own creation, for what the eye of the spectator sees is not the figure or face from previous art, usurped by the artist of our time. Even though one can recognize in the art of Rafael Teniente the Gioconda or Eros and Psiquis or other productions from the past, the one who sees them knows immediately that we are in front of an original expression.

All the figures are subjected by Rafael Teniente to a peculiar enlargement of faces, torsos and legs. The distance between the eyes and the mouths is bigger than usual and the same occurs with fingers and muscles. The human figure, modified like that, is another vision and another presence. Curiously this does not produce a deformation of the figures, only a transformation, justly needed so that this figures move on to become the work of Rafael Teniente.

As for the production this pieces are not worked with what could be the opulence of oleo, its texture and colors. On the contrary, Teniente works with carbon and graphite and with this techniques that those painters from another time used only for sketches and their first concepts of what the final piece would be, now become the main techniques and with them these works that posses an indubitable force to express the world inside the artist are achieved. One could say that this capacity to express is equal to the opulence of the oleo and its texture. Despised by many and forgotten by the capacity of the great materials of paintings, this procedure of carbon and graphite, due to the mastery in which Teniente works with them, acquire the necessary greatness to reveal by itself a full image of form and human figures. Its not usual during these times to posses such expressive force in a technique that only becomes legit if with it one obtains the presence of a stroke, a line and a volume capable of establishing the necessary language to affirm the presence of an authentic piece of art and its this other element in which Rafael Teniente’s art is constituted: that control and that movement of the hand over the paper’s surface not only is it everything, but the revelation that between that original concept and the final artwork is precisely what makes this qualify as artistic. Hence the belonging of the work of Rafael Teniente to its own origin.

Review of the exhibition “Dibujos”

Alfonso Rangel Guerra (Monterrey, N.L., 1982) is a lawyer, teacher, writer, academic, essayist, and public official in culture and education. Served as the cultural attaché for the Mexican Embassy in Spain (1965 - 1967); was the President of CONARTE (2003-2006); was associated researcher and secretary general of “Colegio de México” (1985-1988); was twice the secretary of education in Nuevo León (1988-1991 and 1996-1997); was the CEO of CREFAL (2001-2004); winner of the “Alfonso Reyes” (2009). His labor as an educator is marked by humanism and his solid universal culture.