Chilean artist Leonardo Sepúlveda, based in the city of Linares, in the Maule region, is one of the most interesting exponents today of his country's folk painting. Describing himself as a “visual artist of Chilean popular culture”, Sepúlveda brings us closer, through his paintings, to the traditions and customs of his nation, full of country scenes that are intimate, colloquial and full of secrets all at once. His drawings still echo with the result of the mixing of European and indigenous elements during the Chilean colonial period.
He graduated in Fine Arts with a specialisation in painting from the University of Concepción in 1999, and today he combines his work as a painter with teaching in various studios that bring an interest in painting to the people around him. Dedicated full time to his calling, Sepúlveda has shaped a very distinctive style of his own that makes his artwork easy to recognise through the singularity of his drawing and, in particular, through his lively, almost Fauvist, carefree and festive use of colour.
With a figurative-expressive style and working in acrylic on canvas, Leonardo Sepúlveda passes on to us the joy and the nostalgia of his culture, where everything is wrapped in a kind of rural enchantment. The subjects of his artwork abound in simple, popular scenes, where working the land, tending the animals and even the calm that follows exhaustion leave their own parentheses for music and the quiet celebration of love.
The vineyard landscapes so typical of Chile, together with the humble characters of his criollo painting, tell fragile country stories in a warm, funny way, loaded with energy. His images, so full of brightness and life, almost recall the frames of an animation, everything is pigment in waves crossing our pupils but, at any moment, out of the colour will come the smells of still lifes, sheep bleating, cows lowing, the rough texture of a nipple, guitar chords. And everything is colour. Within this wild ray of light. Everything is colour.
Leonardo Sepúlveda has taken part in numerous exhibitions, both solo and group, in the cities of Linares, Talca and Concepción, as well as at the Galería Montecatini in Santiago de Chile, where he is an exclusive artist. He has received various distinctions and awards, among them the first municipal art prize of Linares and the top honour at the 5th Nuestras tradiciones painting competition, held in the same town.
Find out more about Leonardo Sepúlveda and his artwork here!
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