Artemisa de Gabios. Painting

I always remember myself painting, since I was really young I have been playing with pencils and paints. My first solo exhibition took place the day of my tenth birthday, and there were over 40 paintings that I did when I was seven, eight and nine years old. I have always been fascinated by those magnificent paintings showed in museums, and that liturgical feeling I had when I looked at them. For me that was almost a ritual, being able to get their beauty, with silence as my only partner. I had the feeling that those works were asleep and only woke up when I stared at them. It seemed absolutely amazing being able to go beyond the physical presence of the artist. That is why, after maturing a bit, I wanted to try to do it myself. All the children paint and draw when they are young, actually I never had to take any decision about it, I just never stopped doing it. Analysing my work by series, due to the constant artistic changes both in my style and the means I use, I consider it to be beyond the concept of evolution in its classical way. It may seem that discontinuity and gaps mean a break on any apparent linearity in my production. But if my work is analysed as a whole, you can look deeper and see the essential topics of my work. Topics like the face, its preservation and mainly a matter of identity as something built and linked to the masks. Surely those are the main topics of my work, totally crossed by the concept of the passing of time and an impulse for preservation present in all my series. I have always liked investigating different techniques and pictorial procedures, and I suppose this is something clear in my works. I like the idea that the spectator, while looking at one of my pieces, can feel as an acting part of its creation moment. The way I paint is based on a continuous process of construction and deconstruction of the painting, I like the moment when the different layers that build the painting show simultaneously. I am equally comfortable doing figurative and abstract works, in the end matter is what I want to be the focus of my creation. I am in love with painting, when I paint I put all my energy and feelings in what I am doing, because I strongly believe that matter ends up absorbing all of it.