Tag: spain

Pablo Zamora and Riccardo Tisci, “Quim Gutiérrez”

Photo Shoots of Quim Gutiérrez

Joaquim Gutiérrez Ylla, better known as Quim Gutiérrez, is a Spanish actor born in Barcelona, Spain.. He won the 2006 Goya Award for Best New Actor for his perfomance in the 2006 film “Azuloscurocasinegro (Dark Blue Almost Black)” directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo. He was also in the 2013 film “The Last Days” and “Spy Time” in 2015.

ICON Magazine Photography by Pablo Zamora; Givenchy Ad Photography by Riccardo Tisci

The Salvador Dali Theater and Museum

The Salvador Dali Theater and Museum, Figueras, Spain

The Dali Theater and Museum is a museum of the artist Salvador Dali in his home town of Figueras, Catalonia, Spain. Dalí is buried there in a crypt below the stage floor which is located under the geodesic dome cupola.

The heart of the museum is the town’s theatre that Dalí knew as a child. It was where one of the first public exhibitions of young Dalí’s art was shown. The old theatre was burned during the Spanish Civil War and remained in a state of ruin. In 1960, Dalí and the mayor of Figueres decided to rebuild it as a museum dedicated to the town’s most famous son. In 1968, the city council approved the plan, and construction began the following year. The architects were Joaquim de Ros i Ramis and Alexandre Bonaterra. The museum opened on September 28, 1974 and it expanded through the mid-1980s.

The museum displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by Salvador Dalí, the core of which was from the artist’s personal collection. The museum also houses a small selection of works by other artists collected by Dalí, ranging from El Greco and Bougereau to Marcel Duchamp and Joh de Andrea; a second floor gallery is devoted to fellow Catalan artist Antoni Pitxot.

“I want my museum to be a single block, a labyrinth, a great surrealist object. It will be a totally theatrical museum. The people who come to see it will leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream.” -Salvador Dali

Elia Tomás

Elia Tomás, Title Unknown

Elia Tomás is an incredibly talented artist based in Madrid.  His first memories of art stemmed from his uncle who painted landscapes devoid of a human element yet full of personality.   After years of carrying his uncle’s artistic influence through a different path including a psychology degree, he moved to Madrid and embarked on his own artistic journey.

Unlike his uncle, Elia’s gaze is directed towards a human element and he uses the portrait as a means to develop a narrative of the individual. Real life people end up becoming fragments where he explores vulnerability.  Hence the election of the main characters of his work: men, children and teenagers in a continuous redefinition process. They either look back in time searching for parts of themselves that remain incomplete or live with such an intimate intensity a moment of solitude. They struggle to assert themselves and sometimes to compare to others. They often feel they are victims of certain hormonal euphoria and some degree of disappointment.

Eloy Morales Ramiro

Hyperrealistic Oil Paintings by Eloy Morales Ramiro

Eloy Morales is a 39 year old painter based in Madrid, Spain. He has been practicing his craft since 1995. Morales’ oils paintings are hyperrealistic facsimiles; the attention to detail in his work is uncanny. It ceases to be representation at this point, as the renderings are an almost-exact copy.

Observing his process, it appears that he patiently works in tiny pieces at a time, filling in pigment and blending it as he goes. The painting spreads and grows rather than being built up upon by layering. What is also impressive is the scale and size of his pieces, as his paintings are fairly large.

The majority of his subjects tend to be of himself. Usually, the self-portraits consist of his visage smeared with various types of mediums and color, to capture the light in a myriad of ways.

Joan Dausa, “Jo Mai Mai”

Joan Dausa, “Jo Mai Mai”

Joan Dausà is a Spanish actor, known for “Arròs Cova”t (2009), “Barcelona, Nit d’Estiu” ( 2013) and “Barcelona Christmas Night” (2015). As a musician, he is a member, leader and visible face of the group Joan Dausà i els Tipus d’Interès , with which he has recorded four albums, and has performed several concert tours. He is the author of the BSO of the films “Barcelona, ​​Noche de Verano” (for which he received a Gaudí award) and “Barcelona Noche de Invierno”.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

David Velduque, “No Place Like Home”: Film History Series

David Velduque, “No Place Like Home”, A Film for LGBTIQ Rights, World Pride 2017, Produced by NEURADS

“No Place Like Home”, starring Marius Praniauskas, is the story of Niko, a guy who enjoys his life and his sexuality at it’s full potential. Suddenly he will have to go back home to his country in eastern Europe to take care of his ill mother. Nothing is what it seems and soon he will realize what is really going on. A breathtaking roadtrip about the discrimination and violence against the LGTBIQ community around the world.

David Velduque was born on January 28, 1984 in Madrid, Spain. He is an actor and director, known for “No Place Like Home” (2017), “Por un Beso”(2016) and “Crudo”(2017).

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Puente Nuevo Bridge

Puente Nuevo Bridge, Ronda, Spain

Ronda is a city in the Spanish province of Málaga. It is located about 100 kilometres west of the city of Málaga, within the autonomous community of Andalusia. The Puente Nuevo is the newest and largest of three bridges that span the chasm that carries the Guadalevín River and divides the city of Ronda, in southern Spain.

The construction of the Puente Neuvo Bridge that stands today was started in 1759 and took 34 years to build. There is a chamber above the central arch that was used for a variety of purposes, including as a prison. During the 1936-1939 civil war both sides allegedly used the prison as a torture chamber for captured opponents, killing some by throwing them from the windows to the rocks at the bottom of the El Tajo gorge. The chamber is entered through a square building that was once the guard-house. It now contains an exhibition describing the bridge’s history and construction.

Construction of the previous bridge started in 1735, this was the first attempt to span the gorge at this height and was completed by the architects Jose Garcia and Juan Camacho using a single arch design. Unfortunately, this bridge was quickly and poorly built and in 1741 the entire bridge collapsed resulting in the death of 50 people.

Dionisio Gonzalez

Surreal Fantasy Architecture by Dionisio Gonzalez

The work of architect and photographer Dionisio Gonzalez focuses on the chaos caused by both man and nature. Using art as social action, González reveals economic disparities, and ultimately uses the power of architecture for an antidote to the world’s problems. Traveling to far corners of the world, such as Ha Long Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin and Busan in South Korea, González, who was born in the autonomous Spanish province of Gijón, makes hypothetical interventions within communities largely isolated from the developed world, which have been ravaged by natural or economic disaster.

Most of his buildings are stilted and cantilevered structures. In order to achieve equilibrium in the building façade, he has taken into consideration the surrounding landscape thus amalgamating it with his design on multiple levels. This creates a very balanced architectural vision which is pleasing in appearance.

Juan Munoz

Sculptures by Juan Munoz

Juan Munoz was a Spanish sculptor, working primarily in paper mache, resin and bronze. He was also interested int he auditory arts and created compositions for the radio. In 2000, Muñoz was awarded Spain’s major Premio Nacional de Bellas Artes in recognition of his work; he died shortly after, in 2001.

His first exhibition was in 1984 in the Fernando Vijande Gallery of Madrid. Since then, his works have been frequently exhibited in Europe and other parts of the world. At the beginning of the 1990s, Juan Muñoz began breaking the rules of traditional sculpture by sculpting works in a “narrative” manner which consisted of creating smaller than life-size figures in an atmosphere of mutual interaction.

Muñoz’s sculptures often invite the spectator to relate to them, making the viewer feel as if they have discreetly become a part of the work of art. His slate-gray or wax-colored monochrome figures create a sort of discreetness due to their lack of individuality, but that absence of individuality questions the viewer, perhaps even so much as to make the viewer uncomfortable. When asked his occupation, Muñoz would respond simply that he was a “storyteller.”

Aurelio Monge

Photography by Aurelio Monge

Born in Andalucia, Spain, Aurelio Monge is a versatile visual artist whose portfolio is inspired deeply by Baroque painters and other Old Masters of Romanticism, Academism, and Symbolism especially Caravaggio, Ribera, Velazquez, David, Gericauld and Bouguereau.

His work also focuses on the human figure impregnated by his enthusiasm for Greco-Roman culture and Classical sculpture particularly Phidias, Lysippus, Michelangelo, Cellini and Giambologna.

He likes to take care of the composition and framing. Taking advantage of natural light and grain textures at high sensibilities. Capturing the motion.  Playing with the expressive possibilities of the models or the sculptural artworks.

Influenced by his own experience with death and the work of Duane Michals and Bill Viola, he is developing several series into the world of videoart that he reserves for future exhibits. Narrative sequences without beginning or end, back and forward in a loop, proposing different logical interpretations and allowing the viewer a sense of recognition and draw their own conclutions. Simple ideas whose theme revolves around concepts of life and death, body and soul, despair and calm, visible and unvisible, nothingness and eternity.

Concha Flores Vay

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Paintings by Concha Flores Vay

Concha Flores Vay is a self-taught artist from a small village in the province of Valladolid , Spain. She now lives in works in Alicante’s Province on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Her work can be found in private collections in Spain, Germany, Holland and Norway.

“I express myself through my fantasy and creativity. My art-style is very childlike, I love colour, I like to create something different, I don’t follow any trend, I do what I like and the best I can without going out of my art-style, my work is spontaneous.” -Concha Flores Vay

Juan Zelada, “Breakfast in Spitalfields”

Juan Zelada, “Breakfast in Spitalfields” from the EP “What Do I Know”

Juan Zelada is a Spanish singer, songwriter and musician. Raised in a musical family environment, which consisted of jam sessions throughout the different generations, his talent and love for music flourished.

In 2006 he completed his studies at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, where he received an award for composition from Paul McCartney who called his recording a “smashing cd”.

Having moved to London, he set up a band, while still playing in restaurants, pubs, hotels and even cruise ships. He played the London scene to great acclaim and supported Amy Winehouse on her Back to Black tour.

In 2012, Juan Zelada released the single “Breakfast in Spitalfields” which became a national success being the most aired single on BBC Radio 2 only second to Adele.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Antonio Lopez

Antonio Lopez, “Sink and Mirror”, 1967, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

López García studied art in Madrid in the 1950s and lived there after 1960, becoming an instructor at his alma mater, the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando. He has influenced generations of artists as a leader of the Spanish Realists, known for their unyielding depictions of their surroundings and for the long history of painting from which they have evolved. López García’s paintings and sculptures demonstrate not only his keen powers of observation, but also his extraordinary sensitivity to atmosphere and light.

Interior spaces are a recurring theme in López García’s work, particularly the interior of his own studio and bathroom. Though he was initially captivated by the emptiness of his new studio, in Sink and Mirror López captures traces of his own presence. The objects arranged on the shelf below the mirror serve as an autobiographical assemblage that stands in for the (absent) reflection in the mirror.

The artist’s near-obsessive attention to perspective, as hinted by the vertical and horizontal lines of the tiles, cause a rift in the painting’s composition. In order to avoid a terribly inclined perspective, López divided the scene into two views, keeping the traces of process as a mediating buffer in the center.