Elsa Painting

I was born in Pontevedra, Spain in 1945 and now I live and work in Majadahonda, which is a town in the province of Madrid. My actual work emerges after a five years period of time without painting at all. Some kind of emotional cataclysm in my life encouraged me to deal with brushes and colours again, but leaving behind many of the elements that usually had inhabited my paintings, to focus myself on the two fundamental pillars which are most important for me now: colour and form. Painting is the best way I count on to fulfill my desire to communicate with others. My paintings and drawings have, always, carried a message. A silent and hidden message, for me, I must decipher trough others comments; because is not Art, only, what I’m after, but myself. I never start from White emptiness. I prepare the médium (board, paper, canvas) with a coat of gesso and some acrylic colour, and then, I let flow the brush over the surface to the rhythm my imagination suggest, giving my work a rather emotional and direct touch. My paintings don’t tell stories anymore, but they send lots of messages, because painting is the best way I own to communicate with others. The risk of bearing my soul is absolutely compensated by the other person words about my work. This valuable information helps me to know more about my inner self and increases the possibility of growing on as a person. My opinion is that no artist can make a totally original work. It is normal that the first steps we take, we copy from others: our parents, our beloved visual artists. In my case, and trying to be very brief, I would divide them into three sections: old painting, Rembrandt and Velázquez. Modern painting, Van Gogh and current painting Bacon. Apart from this possible more intense influence, I believe that a visual artist has a great capacity to store in the mind, everything contemplated by the retina throughout life. From this baggage of accumulated images, the visual artist will unconsciously select those that she loves the most and with which she identifies best, and then make these images her own. After a long career, like mine, the artist tries to abandon external influences and diverts herself of many treasured objects, in an attempt to achieve a more her own and sincere style. But even so, in her work there will always be some reflection of all the artists who preceded her.