Nacho Martín Silva

Nacho Martín Silva - Pos(t)kärd 8

Artist Biography: Nacho Martín Silva's work is articulated around a painting projected from concerns linked to concepts such as the fragmentary, the simulacrum and the representation or the plausible. Taking the History of Art and Humanity or the creative process itself as axes, Martín Silva maintains a constant concern about how to deal with the Theme through painting, resulting in a polysemic work that takes different directions in its formalization. Nacho Martín Silva has a degree in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, the city where he lives and works. His most recent solo projects include Il futuro non è ciò che era, curated by Tolo Cañellas, at Box 27 (Palma), and Tir del hilo hasta queda ciego at JosédelaFuente (Santander) in 2017, and El Gran Estudio, curated by Ángel Calvo Ulloa, at the Centro de Arte de Alcobendas (Madrid) in 2016. He has participated in group exhibitions in museums, galleries and international institutions such as Galerie Sobering in Paris, Espacio Odeón in Bogotá and OTR Espacio de Arte in Madrid, among others, and his work has been shown in the latest editions of the ARTBO (Bogotá) and ARCO Madrid. He has been awarded the Pilar Juncosa and Sotheby's Prize for Artistic Creation in 2017, and his work is the subject of analysis in the publication Nacho Martín Silva by Juan Francisco Rueda published by Nocapaper in 2016.

 

Pôs(t)kärd, uses as a model postcards depicting the ideal family model that Spain imported from the United States after World War II. This family model responded to the needs of the market to create new consumers and new forms of production. Spain, in the 1960s, with its new diplomatic relations with the United States and the need to renew its image before the international community, imported the family model of the so-called American Way of Life through reproductions on postcards and American publications such as Life in Spanish, which reached Spanish society together with the American military bases established throughout the country. The translation of the image of these postcards into Martín Silva's painting results in a set of independent pieces of different natures that are articulated among themselves, evidencing the problems involved in looking at an image and, even more, translating it to make it one's own; bringing to light issues related to the plausible, the generational disconnection and ultimately everything that is artificial in any canon or model that we try to offer as an ideal. The title of the series, written according to the phonetic transcription of the English word postcard, alludes to the complex system of uses and customs that are necessary to make a meaning one's own. In this case, that of a family model alien to the circumstances and particularities of the place where it is tried to be established.