Contemporary Spanish painters: techniques, subjects and formats

With a tradition going back thousands of years, today's Spanish painters have found ways to adapt subjects, formats and techniques to the modern age. European contemporary art has spent decades feeding on what the avant-gardes opened up in terms of formats (with most painters working today going for large formats), techniques (with watercolour, acrylic and oil as the international benchmarks) and subjects (here we find more variety, since Spanish hyperrealist painters cover everything from landscapes, nudes, portraits and close-ups to much more). Faced with all this diversity, we take a look at the most used techniques, formats and subjects and give you a few examples. Here we go!

The techniques used by today's Spanish painters

Perhaps the technique that best identifies Spanish painting in this new century is acrylic, but it isn't the only one. Oil on canvas, mixed media and collage also turn up among the best known artists. Within this trend we find artworks like “Caperucita” by professional artist Laura Torrico Miranda, in mixed media.

In oil on canvas we find “Copas” by Suso C.Ben, who goes for still lifes, a subject we'll talk about next but which isn't one of the most used these days (hence its interest for the braver collectors).

Common subjects in the contemporary Spanish painter

You can't pin down a single subject for such a mixed group of artists, but the tradition of landscape painting has its roots so firmly sunk into the Spanish imagination that it's impossible for a great many artworks to avoid it. Less clear-cut subjects, as happens with abstract art, also hold their ground today, although realism is still the big trend among many art buyers, especially those who don't want to make life too complicated. If the choice is conceptual painting, you can find artworks like “La Llegada” by professional artist Armin Damtsheuser.

The most used formats

As for format, the variety is far greater and it depends on the space the collector has at home, in the gallery and in their personal collection. On this point no one type of format can be specified, so it's in your hands. What is true is that before choosing an artwork it's essential to know that the art gallery it comes from takes care of handling and shipping, because otherwise the extra cost can be very high.