From my studio: José Manuel Peñalver

Encouraged by his mother, José Manuel Peñalver started painting when he was just 5. Today, in From my studio, he tells us where his inspiration comes from.

1. When and why did you start painting?
I started painting when I was very small, 5 or younger, maybe because my parents, and my mother especially, valued it a lot and that made me feel important. I also enjoyed it.

2. ¿Qué momento del día prefieres a la hora de pintar? ¿Cuánto tiempo le dedicas a la pintura?No tengo una hora especial. Suelo tener varios cuadros en danza que voy tocando mientras hago otras cosas, a veces me concentro durante un tiempo en uno, pero lo normal es que vaya tocando aquí y allá según voy viendo la necesidad. A veces también trabajo por la noche y más de una vez he visto amanecer con los pinceles en la mano. En general le dedico varias horas al día, va por temporadas.

3. Of all the paintings you've made, which is your favourite? Why?
I don't have a "favourite", I have "favourites", I couldn't say which one stands out most. To name a few, Obsesión, Un paseo sin palabras, Mar de hierba, Día felíz, Murcia de noche, etc. I conceive almost every painting in my work as a poem or a visual tribute, something very personal, in a way certain energies of the moment stay recorded in it, and it was made in search of some kind of magic or investigating a certain effect..., it's very hard for me to single out just one.

4. If you could be reincarnated as a master of art, who would you like to have been?
It's hard to pick one, so I'll say two. The first is a huge cliché, but here goes: Velázquez, for how balanced his message is, for that humanist, egalitarian vision that gave dignity to whoever he painted, be they kings, gods, popes or courtiers, and for his mastery of painting. I think I'm chasing a bit of that too. Rothko would be the second, for his spirituality and his sense of the transcendent.

5. What is or are your sources of inspiration?
Maybe life itself is the main source of inspiration. In my best moments (not all of them) life strikes me as mystical for its intelligence, magic, beauty, mystery, brutality, etc, and it makes you want to pay it "tributes" or write it "poems", in my case to paint it a picture. In short, I can find it anywhere if I look from the right point of view: in a conversation with a friend, in a cluster of trees, in technology, in a situation, on the internet, in a bar, a good book...

6. Of all the art movements, which one has the most influence on your artwork?
Perhaps Neoplasticism and the De Stijl school, and what interests me most about it is the structuring into horizontals and verticals that I tend to use in my paintings and its sense of paintings that are "balanced, ordered, optimistic and cheerful".

7. What does art mean to you? What role does it play in your life?
Art is a way of life for me, my way of loving the world, which in the end is what I think I'll be taking with me.