I was born 49 years ago in Canet de Mar, a coastal town near Barcelona. My childhood went by quietly in the streets of this lovely town between the sea and the mountains.
When and why did you start painting?
I was curious about the art world from a very early age. At 10 I started drawing and painting classes. I've always had the chance to paint, to train and to express myself through painting.
How do you think a gallery and its artists should help each other?
The interaction between the gallery owner and the painter is very important. Gallery owners should dare to bet on new painters, they should work as a launch pad, beyond the closed circuits. It's hard for new painters to get into art galleries. That role is increasingly played by social media and online platforms. It was through them that a New York gallery offered me the chance to show my artworks internationally.
What advice would you give to artists who are starting to show their artwork?
I think an artist should paint from what he feels and thinks, from honesty and sincerity, working every day to give the best of himself.
How did you sell your first artwork? Is there one you feel a stronger connection with?
I started showing my artworks precisely on Artelista, and it was through this platform that I sold my first painting. It was a painting called Paisaje Interior, a big one, like all the ones I do, a very colourful abstract landscape along the lines of the ones I'm painting now.
What is art for you? What part does it play in your life? Do you make a living from art?
For me art is a need for physical and emotional expression, a daily need, it's part of my life since I spend 90% of my time painting. I'm starting to make a living from the artworks I do.
What are your sources of inspiration? Do you identify with any other artist?
My source of inspiration comes basically from the American abstract expressionist painters. I've also been very influenced by the El paso group (informalism) and by the expressiveness through colour of the Fauvist painters. Mark Rothko is one of the painters who often inspires me.
What is it about your creative process that makes it special?
No ideas come to me beforehand when I start one of my artworks, because they don't have an initial symbolic narrative content that could easily be translated into the question, what did the artist mean or want to convey with this artwork? But I can confess that at many moments I think, and even taste or hear a colour. That's why I get sensations in colours when I give myself over to the act of painting, subjective images, physical sensations that I don't analyse, and I let myself be carried along by the climates of the colours, ultramarine blue, intense expansive fluorescent reds, all through the process. It's like entering a hypnotic trance (as an observer I let something happen).
I never prepare initial sketches of the artwork, they're done on the spot on the support itself, with the freshness of feeling free when I paint, with no prior conditioning.
We recommend watching the following video about Joan Ramon Soto Cifuentes' creative process.
Have you had any exhibition lately, what can you tell us? Do you have any project in mind?
I've taken part in several group exhibitions in Barcelona. I've also taken part in two international fairs, AFF Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Art Karlsruhe (Germany). My artworks will next appear before the Asian public at the international fair Art Kaohsiung in Taiwan, from 9 to 11 December.
Could you recommend us:
An artist: Zao Wou-Ki.
An artwork: any artwork by Kandisnky.
A book: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
A film: Manhattan Murder Mystery by Woody Allen.
Thank you very much.
We invite you to visit Joan Ramon Soto Cifuentes' gallery on Artelista.
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