Felipe San Pedro: the artist's gaze

The luminous, colourful painting of Felipe San Pedro reproduces the shapes of those everyday moments that usually go unnoticed. He does it by heightening the beauty and mystery held in their essence and tempting the viewer to capture the secrets that might be hiding among his brushstrokes.

The gaze of Felipe San Pedro (Madrid, 1954) is curious and daring. The Madrid painter wants to dig deeper than appearances and records even the corners, to uncover the stories that lie forgotten there.

His creations draw on photography and film. As if they were snapshots, he holds in his mind those moments he has decided to paint and draws out their spontaneity in order to carry it intact onto his canvases. Many of them work almost like film shots, leaving suggestive images and unconventional framings. Above all of life in the city, read through a cheerful, easy-going lens that also stirs emotion. So Felipe San Pedro tracks the arteries of his native city, and does so by showing its kindest side. He also paints solitary women, landscapes that invite you to get lost, idle beach scenes or interiors. In short, whatever happens around him and has caught his interest.

Felipe San Pedro works from a fine colourist and expressive sensibility, a lively execution, sometimes with a more polished finish, sometimes only hinted at, and attending, with brilliant results, to the effects of light. In these, and especially in his beach paintings, it is impossible not to think of the great Joaquín Sorolla and his brushstrokes dazzling with sun, movement, reflections on the water and joy. This play of light, of contrasts between light and shadow, defines the dynamics of his compositions. In the same way, he finds the colour that portrays each scene and the mood of his characters, caught up in their own business and oblivious to the artist's attentive gaze.

More information about Felipe San Pedro and his work here.