The arrival of Informalism to Venezuela in 1959 also coincided with Jesús Rafael Soto’s and Alejandro Otero’s brief explorations of assemblage and collage as reworked by French Nouveau réalisme. Both Soto and Otero lived in Paris and traveled often to Caracas to participate in group shows and undertake public commissions. Around this period, Gramcko began a series of black paintings (R) in which she challenged traditional artistic methodologies for the use of an array of industrial materials such as sand, pigments, and glues to produce barren textures with a tactile quality. Some works show scratches inflicted on the pictorial surface to avoid artifice, showing technical processes opened to chance. Even though Gramcko did not consider herself part of the Informalist group, her works were a reference for local practitioners of the tendency: “For me, texture is a distraction. Intricate surfaces tend to lead to the path of intuition and form, which is what matters.”

Starting in 1960-61, Gramcko abandoned the highly stylized forms and compositional rhythms that marked her early production in favor of formless, densely textured, and tactile black surfaces. In “R-33, Todo comienza aquí (R-33, It All Begins Here),” 1960 Gramcko combined overlapping layers of oil and acrylic paint mixed with plastic, glue and sand, which gives the painting dimensionality and perspectival shifts. Here, a vibrantly hued and textured red oval, glows against a black background.