Xabier Liz

Xabier Liz - Square with mollusks

Technique: Ash on canvas

Artist Biography: Working with diverse materials becomes the transformation of elements extracted from nature into emotional moments and landscapes without defined perimeters. In my works I start from concepts and moments both near and distant in time and transfer them to different supports: paper, board or canvas through different processes. In the case of the works on wood or paper, the preparation of the works is based on the addition of different materials, all of them with a past that links them directly to the natural raw materials from which they come: driftwood, various metals in different stages of oxidation, ropes, vegetable elements or fabrics. When working with paintings on canvas, I start from an internal structure of sculptural character that gives the third dimension to my works. This structure, made of wood or plastic elements, forms a base to project the canvases out of the two-dimensional frame of the paintings. Subsequently, I stretch the canvas over the structures until I achieve the spaces I am looking for in each work. In both cases, either on the less manipulated supports, such as those that form different reliefs or depressions in the works, the paint is replaced by natural materials: mainly ash and pumice powder. These materials, which form the most purely pictorial base of my works, either in their pure state or mixed with pigments, follow a long process of work on the surface of the paintings. Different days with successive drying and applications. Different layers and multiple sanding are modeling the images, sometimes fully polished and other times with thicker elements that under different lights give works that paint themselves before the eyes of the spectators.