I met Imma Masó when she came to Olot to take drawing classes at the academy run by my father, Lluís Carbonell. Her artistic gift became evident very early on. Although she was only 13 at that point, her artistic vein - a quality that can be identified from a very young age - was already beginning to take shape inside her.

 

Imma Masó was born in Olot, a town that was home to many top artists, most of whom were part of the so-called Olot School, which confers a great amount of prestige on the city. However, from the very outset she departed from these strictures in order to explore a style of her own, all the while assimilating the latest trends into her search for her own personality. Imma’s painting forms part of a dreamlike universe. Her indeterminate forms are an abstraction from reality, transporting us into a world that is at times subtle and ethereal, while being sharper at others, made up of somehow more forcible spaces (as if she sought to denounce the times in which we are living). Her work makes the viewer think, plunging us into the artist’s internal world in pursuit of the mysteries posed by the canvass. Throughout Imma’s plastic oeuvre, a substantial role is played by the viewer, whereby a triangle is formed between the viewer, work and painter, a process through which the artist successfully communicates.

 

Colour is another important element in Imma Masó’s work. Each of her works enters into a realm of personal tones, which may be monochromatic, or alternatively colourful and striking. Some works offer a glimpse of elements or inscriptions with which I profoundly identify, but which take us back to a concrete form to express a different view of the moment. The artist is always a visionary of the time. Furthermore, Imma does not eschew large format work. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, it is precisely through this type of art that the painter reveals the full extent of her ability, for she finds herself having to pour all of her senses into it in order to achieve the effects dictated to her from within her.

 

I very much enjoyed writing these lines. Doing so gave me the chance to enter the world of Imma, that 13-year-old girl whom I met one day when she came to learn how to draw
 

Xavier Carbonell.