Extract ‘Leopoldo Nòvoa. Memorial’. Catalogue Circulo de Bellas Artes. Madrid, 2003

…In 1979, a fire destroyed his workshop on the rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine. This is what we find in Nòvoa’s biographies. This is no anecdote. Nòvoa’s later creations could not be understood without knowing this.  Much of his work disappeared in the fire and Nòvoa is forced recapitulate. He is aware that the history of art is a summary of work lost and work surviving. I know remember that one of Francis Bacon’s series, the one depicting Van Gogh walking in the countryside, mentions a painting by the Dutch artist that has disappeared or been destroyed. After the fire in 1979, Nòvoa is not satisfied with mentioning or recreating the lost work, although he does so. He has found a new material: ashes. Light can be black, we could decide recovering an old idea. Ashes will become the raw material of many of Nòvoa’s pieces. Black on black and, nonetheless, living, trembling, disquieting black. A painter working  with ashes creates shadows over shadows.
But let us not deceive ourselves. There is one Leopoldo Nòvoa creating white paintings. The two are complementary. One Leopoldo Novoa pays a tribute to chaos, destruction and fire  and the other  Leopoldo Nòvoa is serene, contained and silent. This is the contradiction behind all is work…
…A few days ago we were contemplating one of his latest creations in this artistic universe: a triptych of considerable proportions. Inserted in the material, three recognisable objects:a crucifix, a pair of steps and a ladder. Three symbols of a Calvary to which the human race ascends. I realise now that the most ambitious of Nòvoa’s work have the vocation of being memorials. Instead of the names of the not fallen, they reveal signs, graphics, subtle or abandoned things. We can see the tragedies of our time in these paintings. Nòvoa’s reasons are not those of a nihilist, because he is capable of accepting chaos but not nihilism. In my opinion, there is something profoundly religious in his work. It is the religion of agnostics who have experienced the crisis in culture and in art. He builds, on the ruins of the world, and saves a small, hard and insensitive stone…