Under the title ‘Embarcadero’, the exhibition hall of the port of Santander hosts a sample of a part of the work of the Cantabrian painter Fernando García Valdeón that will remain open to the public until June 1.
With 'Discourage The Puntal. What may seem like a simple wooden structure, becomes for the artist into a source of inspiration, proposing a tour in which he makes a retrospective of his artistic career. It is an exhibition of contrasts in which his versatility shows us. Forms and structures such as union link on a trip through tenebrism, colorism, dreamlike and real.
His work begins with white and black as protagonists. At the beginning of his career he began with the dark and now he develops it more freely, without complexes, being carried away by his creative capacity. Thus, it shows us a black and white jetty where its exquisite taste is evident for forms and structures. In a first series, order and image prevail is static on a white and homogeneous background. In a second series, it is allowed to be wrapped by cycloogenesis and takes us to a movement in motion. Enter the blue and let the landscape and the wrapping wind spring without subtracting prominence, but making it a scene full of life. They are overwhelming paintings, which perfectly transmit the feeling of restlessness caused by the storm. It is in this series where the human figure introduces.
His work continues with pictures full of color in which he expresses his vitality, his joy of living. Here the duality of the artist and his personality is perfectly reflected. If in Tenebismo it shows us excellence, color is also its strong. In this series of paintings, it combines different tones to create radically different pictures but all with the same energy. This part of his work reminds us of his passage through abstraction, since although the element he portrays remains the jetty, sometimes we even forget him by force that the colors acquire.
Another series of paintings made in pencil I counted on cardboard. Here, he plays with the ways to show us an impossible jetty.
He also exhibits art with new technologies. One of the rooms of the Palace of the Discourse, hosts a video-project directed by Fernando García Valdeón and made by Héctor F. Díaz Marqués. Somo's jetty as a central focus, provides the possibility of creating a dream world in which imagination and reality, objects and shapes, memories and forgetfulness are mixed.
The author
Fernando García Valdeón was born in New Mountain (Cantabria) on September 19, 1945. He formed in Fine Arts in Santander and spent several years drawing and preparing in the Circle of Fine Arts, in Madrid. In 1971 he entered the Superior Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, ending the degree with the maximum qualification.
From that period to the present, there are numerous individual and collective exhibitions in which he has participated. Some of his works can be found in prestigious museums and in the main particular collections.
In 1997 he was in charge of preparing the commemorative engraving of the NATO Summit, a work received by the world's leading leaders.
Since its inception, Valdeón has followed a coherent trajectory, which has made him a reference within the national figurative landscape, also highlighting with his colorist abstraction, without betraying his particular way of understanding art, and consequently, life.
García Valdeón has exhibited in our country in Santander, León, Zaragoza, Sevilla, Madrid, Barcelona, Palencia, Murcia, Valladolid, Palma de Mallorca, Oviedo, Guadalajara, Marbella and several localities of Cantabria. He has also shown his works in Rome, Paris, Stockholm, Caracas and other Venezuelan cities, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles or Houston.
Exhibition schedule
The exhibition will be open to the public until June 1 at the following time: Tuesday to Friday from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 to 13: 30 h. Closing Sunday afternoon and Mondays throughout the day.
On the occasion of the May 1st bridge, on days 1 and 2, it will also open in the morning from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.