Microsoft Word - Jaime Coolabah Pau Baya


Coolabah, Vol.2, 2009, ISSN 1988-5946 Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians, 

Australian Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 

 

 

2 

 

Pau Baya Grass 

 
Barcelona, 1974.  

He studied at the University of Barcelona, 

specialising in sculpture, finishing his degree 

in arts in 2000. He is an art teacher in a private 

secondary school in Barcelona. 

 

He has won prizes for his work and has 

worked with Italian architects as well as 

exhibiting his work in Catalunya. 

 

 

 

Carving and living 
 

Everything starts with a falling in love. In the 

stone quarry, you step on many stones, blocks 

of different shapes and sizes. And in that stony 

place, a shape and a colour seduce you. You 

approach it, touch it, walk around it and you say: this is the one! 

 

At the studio, at home, there is a new descovery. 

The stone outside of its own context stands out with 

renewed personality and glow. There is not a 

dialogue yet. 

 

Silence and space are my allies in the new and 

pleasurable fight which is about to begin. The 

attentive, reflective and concentrated look are my 

weapons in front of an apparently silent, hermetic 

and barren block. 

 

Hours go by and the dusty and chaotic emptiness of the studio overwhelm me. The 

enemy appears: the doubt and the fear. I ask myself: what if I chose the wrong block? Is 

this my job? But experience tells me that time is another ally, and that you have to make 

it yours. 

 

Finally, among the foggy screens of the studio, a beam of light appears, which 

penetrates the space and makes a constellation of particles dance in the air. I follow the 

trajectory of the beam and I observe, surprised, the slow awakening of the block, from a 

long winter lethargy. We start to talk. 

 

It talks to me about textures, caverns, heads, edges, plans, folds and tensed surfaces. I 

answer to it and explain to it things about architects, landscapes, contrasts, empty and 

full spaces, proportions, lights and shadows, memories and myths. It is a fluid dialogue, 

we are getting along well. 

 



Coolabah, Vol.2, 2009, ISSN 1988-5946 Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians, 

Australian Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 

 

 

3 

 

As if stricken by an intoxicating and lucid madness, my gesture is drawing, nervous and 

loquacious, filling virgin surfaces. Everything is stain and lines. The graphite comes on 

stage and fills it with its peculiar elegant and dirty character. Activity becomes 

compulsive and my head an incandescent pot. 

 

I am tired, but immensely happy. We have finally talked to each other and we are 

starting to know each other. I go home quiet. Tomorrow I will start to carve.