Gallery facade. September 2023.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Nova, 2023. Oil on linen.
Mobula, 2023 (izq); Filo, 2023 (dcha). Mixed media on linen.
Nival, 2023. Oil on linen.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Cenit, 2023 (izq); Nadir, 2023 (dcha). Oil on linen.
Lumen, 2023. Oil on linen.
Exhibition view.
Edén, 2023. Mixed media on linen.
Selene, 2023. Oil on linen.
Exhibition view.
Flare, 2023. Oil on linen.
Flare, 2023. Oil on linen.
Exhibition view.
Nimbo, 2023. Oil on linen.
Lord, 2023. Mixed media on linen.
Lord, 2023. Mixed media on linen.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Information
Santiago Giralda
Light years
From September 14 until November 11, 2023
The first time I saw Santiago Giralda’s painting… There was beauty.
For the great majority of painters, beauty has ceased to be an objective, it seems to be pushed into oblivion. Santiago Giralda is still a pilgrim walking towards great beauty. Although his painting is very elaborate and well thought out, it retains a childlike aura, a lost paradise.
Each painting is an ultimate vision, integrating many previous ones. An image that unfolds in the mind in a total form, like the previous instant, in which we sum up a life before we die. And there appears the sacred mountain, the original tree, the forest of happiness, and also empty spaces, like fissures in the memory, the presence of nothingness or the whole from which we came and to which we will return.
We have been thrown here, in this mysterious land, and we are astonished visitors to this planet that seems recognizable, but which plays with our perspective of the possible. Santiago Giralda paints this mystery and his paintings depict this world and the world beyond. A fusion of reality and dream. An unreal reality, but full of truth. Drawing and color of the vegetation here from an unknown territory.
For this exhibition, he revisits past stages and reaches that moment when the painter no longer looks so much towards the mundane but then intends to continue painting, patiently, tirelessly, faithful to his vocation, rooted in painting, nothing more and nothing less. On this occasion, he was not concerned with painting a specific motif, as in the past it was the mythical mountains, the villas of Rome, or nature in New York. Now, he revisits this archive of images that he has been compiling, to offer us a journey through his interests over the last few years. With an eagerness to let the creative process flow without premises or pretensions, he has searched through those painted pictures, suggestive images, discarded sketches, and unfinished ideas, to open up new paths, overcoming the distance and the passage of time. Thus, the landscapes that make up this exhibition are not situated in a specific place and time, but they have been and are present all the time. They exist from the references of our environment represented, but they need memory, conviction, and imagination to manifest themselves in their totality and reveal their authentic dimension as if they were the landscapes of a star that is light years away.
Santiago Giralda’s painting is his own, unmistakable, he has achieved the difficult task of having his style. Painting full of originality. As the Maestro said, “In this world, the novelties stone the originals”. Santiago Giralda pursues himself, he looks for and finds his authenticity outside of external currents.
I believe that his painting can be enjoyed by a child as well as a wise man. It is sensual and at the same time spiritual. It can be seen from many different sides. It is a vital affirmation that lasts over time, an inner and solitary will of a painter who fights against the transience of everything alive. Isolation in love.
One more approach, in each of his paintings, that never achieved I don’t know what, which makes us keep on painting.
Pedro de Oriol Icaza