I was born in 1973 in a small, beautiful town in Argentina called Villa Giardino. I lived there until I turned 27 and in May 2002 I moved to Málaga, where I live now.
I'm a designer with my own studio and I team up on audiovisual projects with my friend, the director Javier Cabrera. In fact, a couple of weeks ago we just finished a short film directed by him that will be out in a few days. So all the activities I get involved in and give my time to are essentially creative ones. It hasn't been many years since I got seriously into painting, but drawing has been there in my life for as long as I can remember. Today painting is an important part of my life, and I give it all the time I can.
When and why did you start painting?
For as long as I can remember, every afternoon when I got home from school I would sit down and draw in graphite while my mother marked her students' work. At school we had an art class and when I was in third grade the teacher told my mother it would be good to give me some extra training in drawing, since she saw a special ability in me, and from then on she came to my house one or two afternoons a week to give me private lessons.
That's when I also started experimenting with India ink. Those were my materials, paper, graphite and India ink, that's what there was, and I always did it for the sheer pleasure of doing it, I never saw it as a profession or something I would do for a living when I grew up.
Even so, back then, at 8 years old, I got my first commission. My grandfather asked me to paint a gaucho with his boleadoras on horseback, in India ink, on a stone in his living room. There wasn't much room for error because whatever I did couldn't be erased or corrected... and it's still there. It didn't come out badly, I had no photo or model, it had to come out of my head. I never thought much of it until now, when I go to that house and see it, it does something to me, and it's not exactly because of the drawing, it's because of the gesture and the trust my grandfather placed in me.
A bit later, at around 10, and by pure chance, I saw two artworks by an artist on display that made a huge impression on me. I always wanted to walk past the place where they were hanging and see them again. Not long after I found out that painter was my neighbour, it was Georg Miciu Nicolaevici whom I deeply admire and who is today an internationally recognised artist. Years later he would be the inspiration for me to try my hand at the palette knife, and I'm lucky enough to have a relationship with him from which I never stop learning.
These two isolated but closely linked events, seen with the perspective of time and maturity, are the ones that shaped my present.
Then, for several years, I drifted away from drawing a bit, and it wasn't until I settled in Málaga (where I live now) that one day my wife, knowing the story I've just told, brought me an easel, a canvas, charcoal, palette knives and oils as a present. That's when I started wrestling with the difficult palette knife technique, and little by little I tried more and more, I came to see that this technique is the one that lets me express myself best, and above all I accepted that “painting” isn't a simple hobby or pastime, it's something important that I had never been able to recognise. It doesn't depend on other people, it depends on what you yourself feel, and I feel happy painting. I paint because it lets me express a lot and, bearing in mind that I'm a very reserved person when it comes to feelings, it's almost, I'd say, a necessity.
How do you think a gallery and its artists should help each other?
A hard question for me because I've never gone to a gallery to show my artwork. But that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion about it. I think both sides make a living from art and there has to be a good connection and a commitment. I have the impression, without being able to prove it, that a lot of galleries only bet on established artists and not on emerging ones. I understand they're afraid of failing, it's a business and it makes sense that they want profits, but I think they could use 2 or 3 days a month, for example, to promote the “unknowns”. They'd surely get more than one surprise discovering new talent that also sells. We all have to take a bit of a risk, it happens in every profession.
What advice would you give to artists who are starting to show their artwork?
I'm not big on giving advice, I don't feel like the right person for that, I still have a way to go. What I would say is something more general to any activity or profession: everyone knows where they feel most comfortable, they have to be natural and true to themselves, squeeze that, push for their own leaning even if it isn't what's in fashion. I don't like fashions, we all go around as if tied behind something that doesn't exist, that we're supposedly meant to follow to belong to a certain social group, I don't get it, I suppose it's snobbery.
Another route I always see on artists' CVs is “Winner of the first prize at such and such painting competition…”, “2nd prize at such and such contest…”. This is something I can't really comment on either, I've never entered any painting competition, I don't rule it out but probably very few. I don't like thinking about it as having to compete to be somebody. In art of all things we're all different, nobody does the same as anyone else, so why do this?
Nobody should take this as me criticising the people who do enter, I know they're looking for a place in art like everyone else, I'm talking about myself, only about myself, and as I said before, I don't rule out entering one, though I don't have any in sight.
How did you sell your first artwork? Is there one you feel a stronger connection with?
Before selling anything I gave away a lot, I suppose the vast majority went through this. The first one I sold was to an acquaintance in Málaga, he had seen it in a photo, but when he saw it in person he was surprised by the texture the palette knife creates and he took it. He was very happy and I was happy it ended up in his hands.
I feel a lot of connection with almost all of them. Within their imperfections I think what I'm trying to convey comes across clearly, in some more, in others not so much, but there's something there.
What are you trying to convey?
Atmospheres, sensations, smells, colours... You know that feeling we sometimes get of thinking "How I'd love to stop time right at this moment"?
That's what I want to achieve, that in every artwork you can see that mental snapshot where time and space are left suspended, and that every time somebody looks at it they can pick up the background noise, the smell, the cold, the heat, the sadness of some lonely person, the joy of someone celebrating, and so on.
What is art to you? What part does it play in your life? Do you make a living from art?
If someone asked me in an exam what art is I wouldn't know what to answer, to a friend I'd say it's emotion. I see a piece of art as the thing in charge of bringing that to a space, an identity or a character. Emotion is very important, at least to me. I don't think an artwork should be bought for how sharp the artist is with a technique, but for what that piece manages to convey.
In my case art plays an important part, I can't go a single day without thinking about it, I walk down the street and I stop at any bar or place like it, however grubby it may be, I'm not after sophistication, I try to see if I can find that moment, it doesn't matter how beautiful the place is.
I don't make a living from art, I make a living from my work as a designer, but over the last year the sale of my paintings has made up a good part of my income.
What are your sources of inspiration? Do you identify with any other artist?
As I told you before, I look to recreate atmospheres where moods come together, bad moments and good ones, and so on. My painting is very imperfect and chaotic but as a whole it's trying to say something. For example, in the following artwork called Empezando I try to convey that atmosphere I'm talking about, in a bar in the middle of the morning where lots of people stop for a coffee and read the paper while they're at it. Details are nowhere to be found but the whole thing forces you to read the content, in my style, of course.
As for influences, I can't deny them, basically there are two, both enormous artists. First of all, as I said before, my first crush was Georg Miciu Nicolaevici, thanks to him I discovered the palette knife technique, the constant search to cut back detail and above all to perfect light, an area where he is one of the greatest. He currently has a spectacular gallery/museum called “Colección Georg” in San Martín de los Andes (Argentine Patagonia) where they show the life's work of a whole family of artists, his father and his children included.
Second, Edouard Cortès, I like him a lot, I think he knew how to play with artificial light and to find some settings/scenes that were charming for that time, what drew me to his artwork were the urban landscapes.
What is it about your creative process that makes it special?
I don't know if it is special, it's something I'm always trying to work out but I feel like I'll never manage it, for that I'd have to be inside someone else's head and make a colder critique, judge from another perspective.
As for the process, at first I'd go out with my camera and look for those scenes where the light created a unique atmosphere. A while ago Georg advised me to paint more from life, “au plein air”, but the truth is I'm not comfortable painting near a bar with lots of people around watching, practically stuck to me, seeing what I'm doing. It adds tension, I'm shy and that would hurt, so I use that technique when I'm in places where I hardly see anyone, seascapes for example. Now, when I paint a bar I usually don't use photos, I just imagine them, it's less stressful for me and I don't lose so much time, little by little those atmospheres start forming on your retina naturally without actually seeing them, I suppose from looking for them so much.
Then a sketch on paper, and from there to the canvas, I draw it in a very pared down way with charcoal so I can start with the oils and the palette knife.
Have you had any exhibition recently, what can you tell us? Do you have any project in mind?
The last exhibition I took part in was at the Artbaho fair (October 2015) in Barcelona and the next one will be this year in Málaga, but the date isn't confirmed yet, possibly in May.
My next project is to look for those atmospheres loaded with something like emotion, pain, and so on, in a space other than bars.
Could you recommend us:
An artist: Georg Miciu Nicolaevici.
An artwork: lots of them, sculpture included.
A book: I'm reading The Danish Girl, a friend gave it to me, I'll tell you later.
A film: lots of them, I don't have a favourite.
Thank you very much.
We invite you to visit Daniel Rivero Serradell's gallery.
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