Francisco Suárez presents “Slow light”

• How and when did your interest in the world of art begin? I started very young, when I was 12 or 13 years old, at the end of the seventies. The first thing that captivated me was the possibility of representing what I had before my eyes in a realistic way. It seemed magical to me. I immediately became interested in the great painters of the 16th and 17th centuries. A little later I discovered contemporary art. From then on I didn’t want to do anything else.

• What does art mean to you? For me art is something essential. It is one of the ingredients that give full meaning to life, that make it more interesting and richer.

• About this new series, what can we expect from the exhibition? This exhibition is made up of very selected pieces from my latest series: “Adde”, “Un motivo para creer” and “Lumen”. It is a magnificent opportunity to see how pieces that form a temporal sequence in my artistic thinking over the last few years converse with each other. A thought that changes depending on whether my attention is directed more towards the formal or emotional elements.

• How would you consider your creative process? How much time do you spend on the concept and the realisation of the work? I usually do the preparatory work on the computer. I explore different possibilities on the same image, modify the colours, the proportions, add or remove elements… After a while I reflect and select the sketches that seem to me to have the most possibilities. Once I have decided on the image I want to turn into a painting, the work in the studio begins. While working on the canvas I never have the computer-generated image in front of me. I only keep a very sketchy idea in my head. This allows me to concentrate fully on the intensity of the result.  The process of realisation is usually quite slow, especially when it comes to the lighting effects. The picture emerges little by little, growing layer by layer. In my way of working there are elements that are very measured and others that are resolved solely in the act of painting. This can be seen above all in the bundles of lines so characteristic of my work, which are in fact the result of drops of paint running down the surface of the canvas. A risky balance between chance and control. In that moment of the pictorial process you either succeed or fail, the work is or is not.

• What is your source of inspiration when creating your collections? My work when I create is quite mental. Some series are the basis on which the following ones are based. However, there is one element that is always present: Nature. I am particularly moved by the lights and colours of the natural environment and you could say that they are my source of inspiration.

• What has been the most important challenge or risk in your career? Probably the search for emotion from rationalist assumptions, which are in themselves cold. For me, emotion is essential in any form of art. But the works must also have the capacity to put us before ourselves, to help us to self-knowledge and to elevate us.

• Is there anyone who has influenced you in your creative work? Many great artists of all times, from antiquity to the present day. Art in any of its manifestations teaches you to look, to see and understand reality differently, to reinterpret what you have in front of you, because the artist has given you his vision, his point of view. Afterwards you are no longer the same. Art has transformed you.

• Finally, what advice would you give to someone who has just entered the world of Art? To be constantly in doubt, to be an eternal beginner. And above all, to always look for their own voice, that which they have to reveal to others.

Written by Elena López Sevilla