10 Questions with Pepe Hidalgo

Pepe Hidalgo’s style is figurative and abstract narrative. His figurative is not related to realism, and it is created from his imagination. Hidalgo’s paintings achieve strength through the glazes or velatures he applies. He will apply two or three to a painting, and they help create a sense of space. There is a distinct element present in his paintings, a string or cord that acts as the umbilical cord that unites him with the universe and allows him to time travel back and forth as it supports his weight and pulls him back into reality. Hidalgo predominantly paints with acrylic and sketches. His artistic process started as a child during frequent visits to the Museo del Prado in Madrid. His work is influenced by Velazquez, Zurbaran, El Bosco, and the Impressionists. Art has allowed him to “free himself” and express himself without prejudice and to dare to do what he feels without expectations. Many people ask him where he gets his ideas for his paintings. When you know him, you realize he mixes his knowledge of astrology, mythology, history, life, and experiences. It is all manifested and expressed in his paintings.

pepehidalgo.com | @pepehidalgoart

ARTIST STATEMENT

“An important purpose of my work is that it can speak for itself. When we sit, look, and listen, we often find meaning and understanding in what is in front of us. Imagery, symbolism, color, texture, shape, and volume are used to express my thoughts and feelings. Many of my paintings narrate a story, experience, or thought I want to share with the audience. Just as each individual has their interpretation of events, viewers have their own interpretation depending on their life experiences.

My work is abstract and figurative narrative. For a painting to be narrative, I need to incorporate elements the viewer can identify; this allows them to participate in the narrative of the painting. The paintings are open, so the viewer can penetrate the artwork and feel as if they are the creator themselves. This allows people to have different interpretations and give their own meaning to the painting. My objective is for people to have a personal and unique experience with my art.”

— Pepe Hidalgo

INTERVIEW

Please tell us more about your background and how you began making art.

Like almost all children, I liked to draw and spent a lot of time sketching, copying drawings, and colouring them. It was during my adolescent years that I started visiting the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Further, discovering the paintings and works of Francisco de Goya marked a turning point for me. His works impressed me so much that I decided to be a painter like him. Obviously, at the young age of 14, one is unaware of the difficulties this would pose, given the social and cultural policies of this time. Despite these struggles, I maintained my dedication to art, and it was in 1983 that I held my first exhibition in Madrid. 

What do you wish you knew about contemporary art before you got started?

My art falls within the contemporary realm; thanks to the internet, at the moment, you can see a wide range of what is being done as contemporary art. It is not my claim to be able to know everything, to be part of a movement, or to be avant-guard.
I think that I am in harmony with my time to the extent that the walk of my life has been adapting to the present moment that I have to live.
My simplest answer would be what the present shows is what I have yet to learn.

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to?

The creation process is fundamentally determined by the idea that I try to represent. I then choose the format, tones, and colors, which are part of the production process. This is changing as it adapts to the original idea that is in my mind or in the vision my mind holds of it.
I pay continuous attention, during the creation process, to three fundamental aspects: volume, color, and perspective-space.

What is the most challenging part of your work? And where do you find inspiration?

The most challenging part of my work is achieving the fourth dimension; perhaps for this reason, I emphasize the feeling of space, flat painting is decorative for me.
But possibly the most challenging thing is not in me; perhaps it is in the viewer, who has to confront himself through my images, which are the product of an uncensored dialogue between inspiration and its realization.
The source of inspiration is very varied, and it can range from reading a book, the news in the press, a new scientific discovery, an image on the street in a bar, an exhibition, or a feeling, for instance. Any of these can create an image in my mind with such sharpness and clarity that it causes me to materialize it in a work.

What messages are you trying to convey with your work?

The message depends on the reason for the inspiration, but my intention is communication, using the image as a medium. When you don't know the word that determines the object, if you draw the object, almost everyone recognizes it in their language.
My intention is to open a dialogue with the observer of the painting, and I try to leave it open, even confused and inconclusive, so that it can be interpreted from different points of view. It is like a copy of one's own realization. During the elaboration, I enter into a dialogue with the image and the work done up to that moment; I transform, change color or shape to get closer to the idea of origin, and as a result of that dialogue with its changes and interpretations, the work ends up being made, the reversal of this process is what I would like to be done by the observer.

In your biography, you mention "Velazquez, Zurbaran, El Bosco, and the Impressionists" as your sources of inspiration. How do they influence your work?

We are all the result of our ancestors. As I said, Goya motivated me; he inspired me to become an artist. Without prioritizing, the rest of the painters provide more information, method, technique, and different visions of art, all of which become the master of one. In this way, I feel that the knowledge of contemporary art continues to influence each of us throughout time. At the same time, the virtues of others can reveal our mistakes, and the mistakes of others we can turn into our virtues. They even influence as a source of inspiration and realization, and you may wonder, why did he paint that?

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?

I am currently doing more abstract work. I am very figurative, often the abstract forms within my paintings lead me towards figuration. My plans for the future are none other than to continue carrying out the present, and it is the only way I know to reach the future.
I have a debt to myself, and that until now, I have not undertaken. One of the things I have proposed for the future is to make sculptures with paper and wire so that their transfer is easier. This is one of the projects that I look forward to completing in the near future. 

Is there any other medium or technique you would like to experiment with?

Generally speaking, any work that is manual is of interest to me; when I arrived in Canada and saw the amount of logs that are deposited on the beaches, I considered the possibility of making many sculptures with them on-site with the purpose of it being a public display that everyone can enjoy.

What do you wish to accomplish this year, both in terms of career goals and personal life?

In reality, I hope to continue doing what I'm doing, perhaps not as intensely as in 2022. 
One of the recurring challenges is that, for instance, when I have five exhibitions, the problem is that every time I exhibit, I want to exhibit new work.
Overall, I think one of my major goals for the near future is that I would like to broaden the range of artists with whom I do collaborative work. Presently, I am collaborating with two artists from different continents. My first collaboration which continues to date, is with a Chinese artist named Gou Yan. Also, I have recently started painting with Den End from France. Below you can see a sample of the collaborative work Guo Yan and I created. 
One of the beauties of these joint works between different artists is represented in the way we challenge mainstream communication forms by solely communicating pictorially through the art. In this way, Gou Yan and I, two different artists from different continents who are unable to communicate verbally due to the lack of a shared language, are able to foster a relationship and an understanding of each other based solely on the communication we sustain through our artwork collaborations. Ultimately, one of the fascinating results of our collaborations is shown in the fusion of the different painting styles that takes place when we create together. 

Finally, share something you would like the world to know about you.

I am against war, and I would argue that there are not, nor have there ever been, holy or justified wars.
War makes us regress in the evolutionary process of man and, therefore, of humanity. War is manifested through barbarism, hatred, envy, and humiliation, which end up further secluding us as individuals and leads to the growth of antisocial walls that hinder community and the relationship, understanding, and, therefore, the evolutionary growth of humanity.