HAMID PAZOKI
Born in 1955, Abdolhamid Pazoki began his artistic career primarily inspired by the creativity of the 70’s. The art sphere of the 70’s was characterized by a desire to evolve and reinforce itself, as a response to the many conflicts of the previous decade.
One of the most central movement of the 1970s was Conceptualism, which emerged as an offshoot of Minimalism, while the experimental, creative journey of Process art materialized by combining essential elements of Conceptualism with further considerations on art itself. The earliest ideas of environmentalism bounced from Land Art, which took art into earth itself, carving the land and bringing art to the outdoors.
For the first time since the regression of Abstract Expressionism, Expressive figure painting slowly re-emerged and regained its prominence, especially in Germany through the works of critically acclaimed figures Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz.
The city of New York remained as the most prominent artistic hub of the decade, with international artists wandering through the downtown scene, visiting bars and art galleries, consolidating the idea of New York City as a cosmopolitan and sophisticated cultural capital. Most of the leading artistic figures of the 1960s remained greatly influential and admired throughout the 1970s.
ALFREDO ROLDÁN
Alfredo Roldán was born in Madrid in 1965. He was self-taught and began painting at the age of 22. At the beginning he divided his time between working as an illustrator for different magazines and painting.
The good reception of his work led him to dedicate himself to painting full-time and to enter the most prestigious painting competitions. In 1994, he won the Madrid City Council Prize at the 61st Autumn Salon with the painting El baño azul.
This work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid. In 1995 he was awarded again at the following edition of the Autumn Salon with the El Corte Inglés Prize for the work La pescadera. These renowned awards opened the doors to national and international art galleries, where he has regularly exhibited with great success since then. In 1996 he was named Honorary Member of the Academic Senate of the Accademia Internazionale di Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy.
The painting Before the Shower (1997) belonging to the National Museums Northern Ireland collection of the Ulster Museum, is part of The Public Catalogue Foundation – BBC Your Paintings, a prestigious website that collects oil paintings from public collections in the United Kingdom for more than 600 years. In 1998 the rector of the London church of Saint Bartholomew the Great, founded in 1112, commissioned Roldán to create a monumental work for the chapel of the Virgin, The Lady Chapel. Since February 1999 the painting Virgin and Child, blessed by the Bishop of London, has been on the High Altar of the aforementioned church.
The Philatelic Service of the Spanish Post Office has chosen nine works by Alfredo Roldán to reproduce them on stamps. In Christmas 2001, this organisation, together with the German Post Office, published the last stamp in pesetas and German marks and the first in euros with the image of the painting Madonna and Child. It also reproduced eight of his works in a series of stamps with the theme Woman and Flowers in 2003. In 2003, Ediciones Sammer published a deluxe edition of the book Alfredo Roldán, written by the sculptor David Gamella, in which a large part of his work is reproduced.
Alfredo Roldán feels himself to be the heir of the main avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, which have defined his understanding of colour and form and their application to composition. Painters such as Matisse, Picasso and Cézanne are his great teachers; like all genuine and honest painters, Alfredo Roldán recognises the importance and meaning of his legacy and that of the revolutionary historical styles to create his own style, a very personal style
ARNAUDON FABIO
Arnaudon Fabio was born in Madrid in 1960. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Madrid.
His paintings evoke an inner world where time seems to stand still… a fragile microcosm inhabited by figures portrayed with tenderness, poetry and compassion. They are works that are serene in their warmth and disturbing in their atmosphere, with lights and shadows… small messages of naked truth that must be looked at with the heart. An emotional journey through the mirror.
«In 2000 I left a gallery with which I worked exclusively. During those ten years that the relationship lasted, I learned almost everything that is brewing in the art world, the good and the bad. Once I regained some control over my work (when one starts it does not seem important, but with time it is)… and more freedom of movement, the need to bring to light other expressive aspects that had remained dormant in the comfortable lap of patronage appeared in this new scenario.
Almost as an antithesis to the friendly and attractive part represented by the elegant figures in my work like Fabio Hurtado, stories began to roam around in my head in a very different orbit and aesthetic but perhaps more intimately personal, hence the choice of another name to sign the paintings. More than an evolution, this meant the birth of another creative space.
A dreamlike, disturbing and timeless world inhabited by characters with a mysteriously ambiguous appearance, halfway between the adult and the childlike.
Tenderness and compassion that invites the viewer to decipher hidden meanings in the roots of my own nature.
CHICO MONTILLA
Chico Montilla was born in Granada, Spain, 1961. In 1980 he travelled to Barcelona, where he alternated his daily classes at the Massana School with frequent visits to the Picasso Museum, the Miró Foundation and the Güell Park.
If the first two fascinated him, the last one shocked him enormously. In front of the work of Gaudí, the greatest of the modernists, his spirit was enraptured by the primitive and timeless flavours that were breathed in the sacred enclosure.
His paintings began to fill with a suggestive luminosity and intense colour. Thanks to this new form of expression, he materialised a series of canvases that were to be in one of the galleries of «La Caixa» in Barcelona. In the spring of 1983, he travelled to Madrid, where from then until 1988 he exhibited in various galleries. He returned to Granada in the summer of 1996. By chance, the director of the Reina Sofía Museum of Modern Art (Madrid) visited his studio. Inspired by his painting, she proposed a series of large-format canvases to be displayed in one of the museum’s rooms.
In 2003, the Spanish Post and Telegraph Philatelic Service published a self-adhesive card with the reproduction of eight of his works on stamps, with the theme «Landscapes». In 2005, the Spanish Post and Telegraph Philatelic Service published a self-adhesive card with the reproduction of four of his works on stamps.
EVARISTO GUERRA
Guerra Zamora, born on September 5, 1942, in Vélez-Málaga, showed an early talent for painting. At age 12, he painted his first oil piece, «Vista de Benamocarra,» and began formal studies with artist Juan Morcillo. At 19, he moved to Madrid, attended the School of Fine Arts briefly, and continued painting while working various jobs.
In 1968, he settled in Las Navas del Marqués and focused fully on art, developing his style with “dreamt landscapes” from Málaga.
Guerra held many exhibitions and received awards, including the National Painting Prize for Young Artists in 1972. His hometown honored him with «Calle Pintor Evaristo Guerra» in 1979, and his solo exhibition «Homenaje a España» (1982) toured nationwide. From 1995, he worked on a significant fresco at the Ermita de la Virgen de los Remedios in Vélez-Málaga, which became his hallmark project, completed in 2006. Recognized with numerous honors, Guerra’s work celebrates his Spanish heritage and captures the light and landscapes of Andalucía.