This week we hear from the Spanish artist Antonio Cabrera. Born in Seville, Antonio has been living and working in London for the past decade. His works include murals and drawings on a wide array of materials – which he explores with us.
Antonio’s work instantly struck me as special when I first came across it at a group exhibition on Brick Lane with Petra from the Blue Rim Gallery. The emotional response they create in the viewer is noticeable and impressive.
Lately I feel that many artists today place such focus on on ideas and concepts that they ignore the powerful ability of art to just move and to target the soul. This is a real shame – so many disciplines explore and analyse the many facets of our lives – and do so expertly – but few can move and provide unexplainable connections the way great art does.
Antonio’s pieces bring to mind Goya’s Nightmares etchings, the eerie loneliness of Lorca, violence, passion, loss. They are organic, instinctive and powerful and full of duende. They are to be experienced.
Antonio tells us about his works and their life-cycle below. You can see more on his blog here.
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Your drawings feel extremely organic and instinctive. How much do you consciously think about what you are creating?
Drawing is a really direct connection to your mind. It’s a very organic process. Often you can make a simple sketch which comes directly from yourself without even thinking about it.
I do have themes of course, I draw a lot of children and certain figures reappear – these must be connected to my own experiences and mental stages which I don’t consciously think about. These repetitions do make me question myself though. Even if I try different mediums and ways of working in the end there will be repetitions and I’ll eventually return to the same themes.
For example, I’ve always been drawing children and pregnant women. Six years ago I accidentally discovered that I was adopted. This did make me look back at my work and that was a scary process. There are unresolved things in my life and my drawings do represent this. My work is a search for my identity.
Also, people are often surprised by the darkness of my works, even though this isn’t something I am always aware of. I think we Spanish love that dark tenebrism. I grew up in Seville, I remember the churches and cathedrals and they get into your mind. You can’t take that away.
Your work does feel very emotional – not only in terms of composition but the very materials you use, such as burnt fabric and used newspaper. What’s the thought process here?
If I draw on a rectangular piece of paper the drawings don’t have emotions and feel constrained.
These days I find special materials on the street and use these to draw on and then sometimes I’ll destroy them. Sometimes you’ll use materials you find, like a table, and this itself has a history which adds to the work.
I also create a lot of murals, I have some around London and around Spain. There is a real destructive and life-and-death element to creating a mural which I find attractive.
If you draw on canvas, the image could be there forever but with murals it will disappear, the image has a life. The wall will start to crack, the building will fall apart, weather will affect it, someone may paint on top of the image – it is more likely to eventually disappear, it’s all a process. These life-and-death elements are a reflection of us – that we are not here permanently.
Sometimes I burn my work, or put the fabrics in acid, and the fabrics will change in a way I can’t control. The images take on their own life – and this starts with me trying to destroy them first! It’s a good reminder that we don’t have control over everything. There are many things which will disappear from our lives.
I work in radio and once a piece is broadcast its gone – you can’t then retrieve it, hold onto it and obsess over it, and I actually find that very liberating. How do you feel about the prospect that your entire body of work could disappear?
Yes, I do think I could end up with not much work surviving and as you say, that can actually be very liberating. When you hold onto your own creations you end up loving and hating them over time. So sometimes you have to just let them go!
