Isla, acrylic paint, pigment, spray paint, varnish on canvas.

The title of this work is inspired by the piece "Isla" by Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie, one of my favorite guitarists.

"Isla" is a six-minute, twenty-nine-second piece composed by John Abercrombie, which appears on Five Years Later (1981, ECM), the duo's second album after their first together, Sargasso Sea (1976). What is striking about this piece—as in almost everything Towner and Abercrombie recorded together—is precisely this economy, this suspension. The white rectangle, like an "island," in the middle of the blue immersion, this white area stands out like land emerging from the sea. The red diagonal line running through it could be interpreted as a single melodic line, a guitar motif unfolding in space, like Towner's or Abercrombie's solo voice floating above a more static accompaniment (the dark blue line, more horizontal, more "rhythmic").

The open, incomplete frame, this black structure that never quite closes, is reminiscent of the duo's writing style: a composition that leaves room for improvisation, that never completely locks down the form. The track "Isla" navigates precisely between written composition and space left open for the dialogue between the two guitars, a framework that structures without confining.