 Enrique Queipo |
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Enrique Queipo (Málaga-1962) |
Look, If you do not want to pay attention to what it is obvious, others will, and I am sure that I will be able to exhibit my works in future occasions. I will tell you my story: when I was a child I already had a kind of special hyperactivity and brightness, I almost always was an open and communicative person. When possible, I have been able to sell myself to the higher bidder and also have worked as an artist a lot more than people my age. Being an adolescent, I felt I had to get to the highest point; I decided I wanted to become a painter when I was seventeen. I was surrounded by contemporary paintings and sculptures since I was born, because my fater was a collector. I assimilated those works and when I decided to become an artist, being very young, the keys of contemporary art already were familiar to me (my father used to take me to different painting studios since I was a child). I considered Picasso as my master. In those days I was alredy able to decompose before composing. My yearning, devotion and passion about art made me shut myself up in a studio at the age of eighteen. I used to work for five hours in the morning and five in the afternoon. My insecurity about the concept was natural at first –because I am a self-taught-. This insecurity was the responsible for keeping me a bit absent-minded for eight years. I spent hours and hours creating psychedelic figures using classical painting techniques such as veiling, insisting on the same area of the canvas at least eight times, numbering and studying the colours. When I first visited Madrid, the art gallery “Alençon”, later named “Gamarra y Garrigues”, was interested in my work. Athough I was just at the beginning of my artistic career, some directors of very important art galleries became interested about my work. The desire to better myself stressed me to the point to go through a depression. I changed the style to feel better and I lost that opportunity. I felt the need to gradually make my painting lighter, till I got to the liberating present moment. I overcame the art slavery. Later I found another gallery in Madrid, “Detursa”, which also showed interest in my work after they saw my dossier. During the collective exhibition named “Esquematistas”, I was proposed for an individual exhibition that I never carried out. Their excuse was that I was not known in Madrid and it was going to be difficult to sell my work. I also understood that my style was good, but too radical for the market in those days. Besides, the gallery went bankrupt. Juana de Aizpuru gave me a prize for painting in “El Corte Inglés” in Málaga. I sent her a letter of gratitude and she had the tasteful touch of aswering. It seemed that she was going to give me the opportunity to become one the artists in her gallery. I was later told that she was indeed interested in my work, but the total number of artists had been already completed. I found in Barcelona the gallery “4 Art”, where I exhibited my work in a collective exhibition named “Retomar la imagen”. The director of this gallery was interested in my work, but he died. Alfedro Viñas –the only gallery from Málaga in “ARCO”- exhibited my works and sold fifty per cent of them. I told him that I was not interested in working with him because I prefered to exhibit in public galleries in order to get 100% of the commission. I just have to give them one picture, so I get more money. I am not rich. All this things impede
my success, although having a contemporary and marketable style. Nowadays
I am doing well in Málaga working on my own. If somebody wanted
to sell my work abroad... I wonder what should
it be done to sell abroad and to be known. I doubt if art is more important
than selling and fashion. At the age of 18, I went to Paris. In 1992 I went to New York. I robbed Frank Stella's keys of modernity to interpret them my way. Gilbert
and George's wise comments from their individual exhibition in London
attracted my attention (and my study about the their concept of symmetry)
“Art does not have to provoke, it must have
the need to discover arguments for the new generations of artists, so
art will be able to develop itself”. Alopeor (if
the worst comes to the worst) modern painting has lost nowadays the
ability to provoke, “it depends to whom”. It is less artificious,
a dramatic effect that is in nowadays, art’s tantrum. Alomejor (maybe) my manifesto has the ability to provoke and perhaps my painting will be the key for the aesthetics of future generations of artists. I am 44 years old now –the best moment of my life. I am a contemporary artist very successful in Málaga. Some of my inaugural exhibitions have been visited by around 500 people and have been sponsored by banks such as “Unicaja” and also by state organizations; with good catalogues of the exhibitions published. Some of the most important critics, directors of art galleries and arts development workers in Spain know me and have awarded me. It seems that they do not stop to study my work. They just stop to say hello to me or have known me when I was less trained. I need a benefactor.
It seems as if they had not realized yet how good I am. I can paint
any size of canvases or design a public square. But those who could
be able to elevate me are very busy nowadays, they ignore me. If someone
very important came to my art studio and had time enough to allow me
to show him all the works I have created, they would leave him flabbergasted.
The author, Enrique Queipo |