The artists' techniques always surprise me and give me ideas. We nourish each other to make better works.
I recently returned to El Ateneo de Málaga. It is a space dedicated to art, where every three months or so they hold exhibitions of new artists, either because they are new or because their works are not traditional.
In the month of August I passed by the place twice, but it was closed, although there was a sign announcing the new exhibitions.
The place consists of three rooms, or rather three spaces, as they are wide corridors where works can be displayed on the walls with enough space for people to admire each work separately.
This exhibition reminded me a lot of a technique I used when I was studying painting. In addition to the usual, you had to develop certain works with rare or unusual techniques and one of them was called chalk pastel on chenille paper, which was a velvet paper.
It was a very easy technique, it was like painting with coloured chalk on canvas, a very soft canvas. I usually chose the grey cloth to serve as a background and painted on it. I hardly drew because it was not easy to erase, so I couldn't make a mistake.
All these memories came to my mind while I was looking at and admiring these works by Fran González, whose exhibition is called Huellas en el tiempo (Traces in time).
When I enter this exhibition, the first thing I notice is this large wall with many works of people recognised in history, whether as artists, politicians, celebrities, with religious connotations and much more. In short, people that we could all know.
All these works are made on newsprint with graffiti spray. It is evident that they are made with pre-established moulds and all the works have a size of 30 x 42.5 cms. They were also all made between 2020 and 2024.
But on the rest of the walls there were many more and huge works of art. Some of them were as big as the height of the wall up to the ceiling.
The technique used is oxide powder on paper or on canvas. It was precisely the works on canvas that took me on a journey into the past in my apprenticeship in painting.
The impressive thing about these works is that if I looked at them from a certain distance I could see figures, faces, whole human beings, not only faces and their expressions.
You can do the test, put an image and move away from the computer and look from a distance, you will see things and that's great.
Sometimes it seemed to me that the works had hidden messages in the form of a human figure. Many of them are the image of Christ or the Virgin Mary, but there are many more.
The lighting was focused on a certain part of the work, which made each one more and more intriguing.
Some were very dark, but at the right angle I could also see shapes.
These two images showing a series of works are more clearly visible as I took the photograph as a whole and moved away from them and the faces are visible.
Finally I found the price list of this art on the site, much of it was sold.
Regarding the first part, each piece costs 100 euros and the whole collection 5,000 euros.
The works made with rust dust each piece also 100 euros and the collection 1.200 euros. While the giant works cost 400 euros each.
I don't really know if I would have one of these works in my home, but I can tell you that I really liked them, both the final result and the technique used.
Thank you all for reading and watching this far. Sending you a big hello and wishing you a great Sunday.
Amonet.
All photographs are my own.
