The Inner Geometry of a Life: A Conversation with Pascual Hijuelos

By Aundria McMillan Humphrey

When Pascual Hijuelos opened the door to his home, I expected an hour of conversation. He gave me two. What unfolded was not an interview, but an invitation into his world, his work, and the quiet interior landscape that shapes both. His home, with its clean lines and expansive light, feels like a sanctuary built with intention. Vivid paintings — one stretching more than twenty feet — pulse against white walls. Deep, vivid colors and tonal shifts create a sense of presence that reflects the essence of his work: ordered but not rigid, elegant but not precious, uncluttered yet full of life.

“I guess people see geometry first,” he told me, gesturing toward a large canvas. “But I don’t paint narratives. I paint feelings. I see shapes as a vehicle that allow me to organize my thoughts. The word artist is overused and diluted. I prefer to think of myself as a visual poet.  My paintings are moments, passages, the space between what is and what will be.”

It is a striking way to describe abstract work, and yet it fits. Pascual’s paintings do not sit quietly on the wall; they draw you in, asking you to move through them rather than simply look at them. “If a painting doesn’t have gravitas,” he said, “it’s a decoration. And I don’t do decoration.”

Much of Pascual’s artistic language comes from a life shaped early by instability. “I was brought up in a world of hysteria,” he said. “My world was never balanced.” His asymmetrical compositions of fused shapes, dissolving edges, and tonal shifts are not stylistic choices but autobiographical ones. “Painting is how I organize my feelings. Everything for me is basically irrational. But if I can bring it together on the canvas, if it works, then I’ve created a kind of acceptability.”

He gravitates toward artists who embody intensity and depth: Caravaggio for drama, Ad Reinhardt for tonal subtlety, and the early Italian Renaissance for its sense of space.

His process is both disciplined and intuitive. Each night he photographs the day’s work. In the morning, if the tension is gone and the energy has flattened, he starts over. “If it doesn’t work, I trash it,” he said without hesitation. “A painting has to be alive. It has to have energy.”

One of his recent works began as a literal depiction of an earthquake for a themed exhibition. But the narrative felt false to him. “That’s not me,” he said. He destroyed the painting and began again, this time focusing on the emotional moment of impact — the darkness, the collapse, the breathless uncertainty. The result is a piece that vibrates with tension. It is pure feeling.

Despite the intensity of his work, Pascual himself is warm, humorous, and deeply private. “I’m an elusive pimpernel,” he said with a laugh, a phrase so unexpected that it revealed more about him than any formal statement could. He has no interest in selfpromotion, networking, or cultivating an artistic persona. “I’ve never been a politician. I’m not a wheelerdealer. Whatever has happened to me, it just happened.”

His marriage to Michelle, his partner since 1990, is a study in mutual respect and creative independence. She has her dance and watercolors; he has his studio. “She has her world, I have mine,” he said. “In the evenings we come together, and we’re happy to see each other.” Their home is a shared life built on parallel passions.

When I asked him about legacy, he paused. “I’m not too concerned about the footprint I leave,” he said. “I’m more concerned about how I feel when I leave.”

In one of the books he gifted me, he wrote: “My work is not meant to be philosophical or conceptual. It is not narrative. It is an attempt to create an elusive moment through the use of colors and shapes… a visual representation of my identity.”

After spending two hours with him, I understood exactly what he meant. His paintings are not answers; they are invitations into ambiguity, into feeling, into the quiet spaces where order and chaos negotiate their uneasy truce. As I left his home, a line from a meditation I’d heard earlier that morning returned to me: “The ground doesn’t ask if you’re worthy of walking on it. It simply holds you.”

Pascual’s work holds you in exactly that way.

Aundria McMillan Humphrey, Ageless Living Advocate. Slowdowngranny.comAgelessLivingJourney.com

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