From my studio: Darío Berterreche

I was born in the seaside town of Miramar (Argentina) in 1969. I studied Optics and Contact Lenses at the University of Buenos Aires. Once I was settled and established in my profession, I made room for my passion and took several drawing and painting classes, with different teachers and techniques.

When and why did you start painting?

Naturally, ever since I can remember, like any child, I suppose. My mother says that at five I was filling six notebooks a week. Although as a young man I had an unrelenting need to get my inner world out, I have to admit that the real revelation behind my ceaseless searching and persistent work in painting came through the physical absence of my father.

Sin título, 120 x 90 cm, Darío Berterreche.

How do you think a gallery and its artists should help each other?

In my country there are plenty of new galleries that charge artists a monthly fee to represent them, they get by on the emerging artist's hopes, with no respect for the work or the sensitivity behind it. So here's to the serious galleries, the ones that bet respectfully on artists who haven't made a name yet, agreeing only on a percentage of sales.

What advice would you give to artists who are starting to show their artworks?

To be true and sincere, to follow the beat of their heart, to be aware that what they are about to show are living fragments of a valuable spirit, a patch of sky from that immense intimacy.

Expulsión, 110 x 90 cm, Darío Berterreche.

How did you sell your first artwork? Is there one you feel a stronger connection with?

Luckily, at my first show I sold two artworks, one buyer was my framer (the man who frames my pictures) and the other was “my uncle”, and that artwork referred to his brother, that is, to my father, and he insisted that I charge him for it so he could feel it was truly his. Every time I visit him and see it, it gives me the same sadness I felt while making it, and that's when I reaffirm my belief in true art, beyond technique.

What is art for you? What role does it play in your life? Do you make a living from art?

Art is life, it's the opposite of destruction and violence, you can attack with art, but from a place of love. I'm very fortunate, thanks to the sensitivity my parents passed on to us, my whole family lives art in its different forms and with enormous intensity, my brothers, my children and my nephews and nieces (musicians are obviously the majority).

Sin título, 110 x 90 cm, Darío Berterreche.

I don't make a living from art yet, I work as an Optical Technician in my home town, Miramar.

What are your sources of inspiration? Do you identify with any other artist?

Besides the paintings of the great masters and of my peers, my sources of inspiration tend to be poetry. Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, the sound of nature, the noise of humanity, silence.

There are two artists I admire enormously, both from neo-expressionism, Miquel Barceló and Anselm Kiefer,

What is it about your creative process that makes it special?

I usually fall back on a ritual Antoni Tapies used, I walk around the studio, look at some artworks I think are finished, get familiar with the smell, the materials, and little by little, in silence, I go into myself to give in to the search for a sky that maybe doesn't exist inside me, but that will be the perfect excuse not to stop.

Have you had an exhibition recently, what can you tell us? Do you have any project in mind?

In December 2016 I opened a show in my home town that I titled Los testigos de mi ausencia”, using collage, recycling materials I throw out in my studio.

For 2017, besides a few group shows, I've been invited to do a solo show in Colombia, at Galería Pilares.