José María Sicilia

José María Sicilia - The instant

Technique: Intaglio ink, paper and silk on wood

Artist Biography: José María Sicilia (Madrid, 1954) is an outstanding representative of Spanish painting in the eighties. After studying at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, he moved to Paris in 1980, where he worked in large formats and his painting constantly evolved. His work is organized in pictorial series that include still lifes and representations of tools and domestic utensils, as well as views of urban landscapes of Madrid and Paris.During the mid-1980s, Sicilia achieved recognition in Spain, France and New York, thanks to his style of painting marked by the freedom of gesture, the violence of color and the dynamism of the stroke. His exhibitions in galleries in Paris, Spain and New York were very well received and marked the beginning of a consolidated career in the history of contemporary Spanish painting.In his most recent work, the image of the flower is a recurring motif that dominates his oeuvre. Although Sicilia considers himself an abstract artist, the flower is one of the few figurative traces found in his work. The canvases presented in the exhibition at the Palacio de Velázquez in Madrid, all made with acrylic, are a reflection of his style inherited from geometric art and abstract expressionism.Sicilia has actively participated in the selection of the works that make up this exhibition. It is a compact group of paintings that show the solid career and long career of the artist. In summary, José María Sicilia is an outstanding artist in the history of contemporary Spanish painting, whose work is characterized by constant evolution, the use of large formats, and the recurrent presence of the image of the flower in his abstract work.