Untitled

This untitled watercolour shows a red car disintegrating into drapes of material as it crashes through a wooden panelled wall, broken fragments spinning off above the car on impact. Through the diagonal composition and the use of dramatic colours Bengochea creates the sense of movement that is characteristic of his work from the 1970s. During this period he painted everyday objects, sometimes repeating their form in a style that has been compared to that of the Italian Futurists.

This untitled painting is expressive in its use of colour, and the unstoppable force with which the car smashes through the wooden 'frame' perhaps reflects Bengochea's ongoing concern with the clash between manmade and natural, man and machine. The colours suggest that the car is in fact breaking away from the smoky, dirty industrial belt of Buenos Aires, where Bengochea grew up and continues to work, into the rural expanses beyond. The vibrant colours and mechanical subject matter of this painting are in contrast to Bengochea's later large-scale oil paintings, which represent the harshness of city life through the anguished, absurd and grotesque representations of the city's inhabitants.

Joanne Harwood