This mural project entails an implicit intellectual process in which the ideas of filmmakers and a visual artist converge around a shared concept—the struggle of opposites—embodied by two characters: *Espectro*, representing beings from the beyond, and *Solar*, signifying light, goodness, and the sun—but also symbolizing culmination and finality, which in cinema corresponds to editing and exhibition.
The story told here specifically traces the stages of production (pre-production, production, and post-production)—stages I transform into composition, form, and color. The power of the stone-like forms, framing a context of nature, crowds, and anticipation, serves as a key to understanding this pictorial process.
Memory, content, recollection, idea, and vision are all elements contained within this mural. Regarding Mexican visual art, Octavio Paz described painting as "...a devastating operation upon reality and, likewise, its metamorphosis..."
Stemming from this metamorphosis of plastic and figurative elements—driven by the painter's theoretical and visual conceptualization—the work clearly demonstrates the interdisciplinary potential between two distinct fields: painting and cinema.
The central scene, where the two wrestlers meet, evokes both the origins and the future of cinema. It references the classic films starring icons of Mexican *lucha libre*; the essence of these figures has been distilled and brought to an earthly plane, where they represent the battle between good and evil—a struggle that finds its ultimate expression in a film production and the entire intellectual and creative process involved in making it.
The composition features two distinct characteristics: first, it is structured by diagonal and horizontal lines to create continuity and rhythm. In filmmaking, this rhythmic continuity would correspond to the editing process. The chromatic quality reveals a preference for a palette of bright, superimposed colors, creating a sense of color vibration through juxtaposition. Through this work, one gains a broader understanding of the vast landscape of Mexican visual art and the paradigms—both created and imposed—that have shaped it.
It is worth noting that Valverde’s perspective reveals a distinct vision of the country’s northern region, imbued with the epic, grandiloquent character that defined Mexican visual art.
By Mayra Núñez
