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Question: What is the importance of Madrid to you? Reply: I think that the place where he is has a great influence on the spirituality of the painter; I don't agree with the painters who moved into industrial warehouses, I find them cold and always empty, they have no life on their own. When the nerve centre moved from Paris to New York, there came great changes, rejecting the importance of romantic and lyrical elements which had their roots in Europe. Novalis says, "We should romanticise the world, discover once more its original meaning ? giving great significance to all that is common, the look of the mysterious to the ordinary, the dignity of the unknown to everyday things, the appearance of the infinite to everything finite ?if we cannot see ourselves in a world of legend it is because of the weakness of our physical organs and our perceptions". My studio is in the old part of Madrid, a place where the activities of the city's bohemians unfold: of painters, writers and musicians and my studio was itself the workplace of another Madrid painter, a place where I feel impregnated with the spirit of Goya. Q: Have you ever had any job apart from being a painter? R: No. I always resorted to painting when I fell on hard times. I remember, for example in Paris, that when it rained, I went down with my umbrella to Montmatre, and gave it to my model so that while he held it I drew a portrait of him. There was always a collector or gallery owner who would buy my works or give me assignments.
Q: How is it that you have this ability to change style and subject with such ease? R: My background is that of a painter with an academic training and for me there's no different between an abstract or figurative work, so long as it's a work of art where what interests me is the technical execution and the honesty of the artist. As Freud said, "What, so forcefully, cannot be, to my judgement, other than the intention pof the artist". Then, too, I'm filled with the need to investigate and develop ideas in order to create unique works, in which I feel myself reflected with simplicity; this is an objective that's of vital importance to me; I like mannerism, spontaneity, being alert or ready to make the most of opportunities.
Q: To what extent do you value the opinion of the public? R: My final goal is to feel myself expressed and to transmit a sensation to the other; the painter and the spectator are one, it's a continuous collision between acceptance and rejection. I feel very flattered when the spectator has the capacity to appreciate my work, and as Delacroix says, "Painting is no more than a bridge extended between the mind of the artist and the spectator, cold perfection is not art".
Q: What sensations to you want to transmit? R: Art is a kind of functional magic, it is also an expansion of the human space - all the sensations have a place there.
Q: Some say that nature imitates art. What is your opinion? R: Hegel said, "Art is not an imitation of nature, but of the ideal"..
Q: When do you know that a work of art is finished? R: When I make the first brush strokes. Susana Yáñez
Journalist and art critic
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