I remember my first trip to New York, that long sought-after objective that was finally being materialized. Of the many impressions and experiences that I had there, there are two that now, after all these years, come to my memory as sensory paradigms of that long visit. The first, the orange and white striped plastic chimneys that covered the gas-main repairs, which in winter pour out a constant stream of thick whitish steam; and the second, the intense smell of the city. That smell that you only get in New York.

Each city, like each person, has a characteristic smell that we can, on occasion, recreate in our memory, feeling it close, as if it were a ghost or an apparition.

When I try to relate one of my works to a particular smell, I search in vain for an argument; but when I get close to the painting I notice its distinctive smell, that narcotic smell that is only produced in my work. My paintings smell of me, and I smell like my paintings. The Gesture Continues has my smell, it smells of my painting, but it also has a New York smell, in an offhand tribute to J. M. Basquiat.

José Manuel Ciria