Esteban Amills Sisó: the search for the essential

His is a considered, rational body of work, with no room for chance, where every line is part of the idea he wants to get across.

The artwork of Esteban Amills Sisó (Barcelona, 1944) can't be understood without Ibiza. After studying Geology and Fine Arts in Barcelona, the Catalan artist wanted to broaden his artistic knowledge and did so with the Ibizan painter Ferrer Guasch. His teacher was after the essence of pure architectural lines and the play of light and shadow. Amills shares that idea in his paintings of the island, where he explores neo-cubist and constructivist forms and makes them his own with touches of colour and the addition of figures.

We should also look at the influence music has on his artwork. He is the author of fourteen paintings that allegorise fourteen sequences from Mozart's Requiem, and of many others that use masterly geometric lines to interpret everything from the cave-like essence of rock and roll to the euphoria unleashed by a concert.

He makes introspective paintings, and subjective interpretations too. His vast collection is made up of still lifes, landscapes, portraits and depictions of a great variety of figures. He also takes on landmarks of art history such as Las Meninas, El pintor y la modelo or El pintor en su estudio, soaking them in his most personal vision.

His artwork never tires of trying out new forms of expression. His geometric lines are drawn under the influence of neo-cubism, constructionism and abstraction, while his more figurative paintings explore the expressionism of colour. There are also artworks that come out of his study of Dalí, Cézanne or Picasso. But his artistic curiosity reaches even as far as the brushstrokes of realism.

With his linear compositions he achieves harmonious sets of planes that follow one another, creating a sense of depth through gradation and juxtaposition.

The Ibizan paintings take the colour white apart in their suggestive architectures. In his geometric pieces, though, he uses a combination of ochre and grey, betting on the shades of those colours and the effects of chiaroscuro.

Esteban Amills Sisó has held more than a hundred exhibitions in Catalonia, Spain and other countries such as Italy, the United States and Argentina. He took part in ARCO 2014 with his artwork Olifantes.

Discover more of Amills here!