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On the road again. Gary and I went to visit
our artist for this week, Andrés Monreal, born in Santiago
de Chile in 1937.
Andrés Monreal is one of the most
(probably the most at present) cosmopolitan artists of our
plentiful, extraordinary and creative crowd of local and resident
artists on Eivissa-Formentera.
His paintings are known and recognised as
exceptional art pieces in many countries in all the Continents,
forming part of public Pinacotheks in Museums and private
collections of Art lovers.
He has gained a well-deserved reputation
within the Art-dimension as a solid and real artist. Not just
for the exquisite quality of his paintings, but also for the
amount of challenge, courage and sincerity that he had to
put into it, to make of his own destiny what he always wanted
most for his life: to paint, to be a painter.
This strong determination, since he was
very young, has allowed him to make his own destiny come true
and has rewarded him with a very uncommon and intense life.
He has formed his own character as a complete person while
the man-artist was forming, living comfortably and free with
his talented work.
Monreal spends most of his time (when he
is not away from the Island on one of his frequent trips)
living and working as he likes best, almost in complete loneliness
in his own house-studio camouflaged in between the forest
in the hills near by Sant Mateu.
If a house can be a reflection of its owner,
this particular one can tell us a lot about him.
To start with, it is not easy to reach.
You have to be invited and guided to it, or else you probably
wouldn't find it.
From the outside, the house, an old and
small Ibicenco finca in its origins, is not pretentious at
all. It is neat and cute, rather small and simple, enlarged
by new rooms and the studio, without a defined style but with
a satisfactory final result.
The house has what is needed, without concessions
to second opinions. Inside it changes. It seems much bigger
and higher, with plenty of light that comes into the studio
through two sky-lights.
The walls without windows are covered with
paintings and photographs and there are a few pieces of restored
old furniture of different styles and it is also full of art
pieces from all over the world, memories of his very cosmopolitan
life and plenty of books - mostly about art - all over the
place. The feeling is intimate, colourful and warm.
"I swapped this house for some of my
paintings that I had in the bar "Can Costa", in
Santa Gertrudis. I like these kinds of deals when money doesn't
need to show," Andrés confessed to his friend
and journalist Jorge Montojo in an interview in the newspaper
"El Mundo" 14th April 2002, in which he also says:
"I arrived in Eivissa in 1957 for the first time.
"By then I was studying in the Sorbonne,
in Paris. I had a girlfriend that wanted to know Spain and
so we both went hitchhiking to Barcelona. There we met a pleasant
person who was living in Eivissa and offered us to visit him
at his house in Sant Antoni".
"It was a different Eivissa then. I
remember that it took hours with the bus to drive to Sant
Antoni; it was stopping all along the road to let the local
peasants, some carrying chickens and even goats, on or off
from it".
A few years later, Monreal came back to
Eivissa to produce a film, in which he worked as an actor.
(Andrés has been in several films, especially in Madrid,
where he was one of the few actors who could speak good English).
Then he decided to live in Formentera for
a time. "It was a splendid and wild Island. I remember
that to be able to paint, I had to go regularly to Eivissa
to buy my canvas in "Casa Verdera".
"There was good money working as an
actor, I worked a lot in Madrid and I also went to Hollywood,
where I worked in films with Anthony Quinn and Robert Mitchum
among others. I could have stayed there, but it became tedious
to do always the same role and what I really wanted was to
paint. So, as soon as I had enough money, I left everything
and I went back to Paris to concentrate all my energy in painting.
"I was living in Saint Germain, feeling
myself up with a revolutionary cultural movement that was
changing everything. I was living day by day, astonished by
the fast changes. That was good for the creativity.
"I can't think of my life without painting.
Sometimes I refuse to travel because it is keeping me away
from painting"
"When I paint, I try not to think of
anything, so the art flows free. I let the brushes cover the
canvas with colours to express ideas and feelings from the
subconscious, like if they were dreams".
Some art-critics have qualified Monreal's
paintings as "Magic Realism", but Andrés,
as a real artist, is free and not to be qualified.
"My inspiration comes from many directions,
from the literature that fascinates me, from other painters,
from the music, from experiences and life itself. But in the
end, it's always myself; it is other people that always have
to classify everything, like if they fear that something runs
out of control because it's free".
Sitting inside his house, admiring some
of his painting and listening to this super-interesting man,
with a glass of beer that Andrés has kindly offered
us, meanwhile Gary doesn't stop shooting his camera, in perfect
harmony. I make my favourite big question: Andrés,
why Eivissa? Why have you decided to live here and make it
your home?
He takes his time and looks at me with this
special way that artists look, that it seems to involve and
freeze everything around them.
I could swear that his pupils enlarge and
shrink as the objectives of a camera do while his iris changes
colour slightly. I have the feeling that he looks far beyond
my shape and skin. I feel really trapped by this look and
I get lost in its depth. Then, I remember reading that Andrés
was also in the Himalayas, where he met the Dalai Lama in
person.
He uses the words as he uses his colours
and brushes; only what needs to be used. There are not wasted
words in his fluid conversation. "I don't think that
man decides anything, I believe in destiny, I didn't decide
to live here, and I learn to love it with time, like one learns
to love a woman. All I know is that when I'm away, I want
to come back, like you want to be close to the things you
love".
Principal personal exhibitions
1958 Wittenbon Gallery, New York,
USA
1959 Galería Beaux-Arts, Santiago, Chile
1961 Galería Beaux-Arts, Santiago, Chile
1962 British Institute, Santiago, Chile
1965 Koltnow Gallery, New York, USA
Circulo Dos, Madrid, Spain
1968 La Buharda, Madrid, Spain
1970 Galerie Sen, Paris, France
1975 Le Vieux Marché Gallery, Ottawa, Canada
1976 Le Doigt dans l'Oeil, Bordeaux, France
Galería Fred Lanzeberg, Eivissa
1980 Galerie Vendome, Paris, France
1981 Galería Es Molí, Eivissa, Spain
1982 Art Pool, Hamburg, Germany
1984 Il Cenacolo, Piacenza, Italy
1985 Galería Es Molí, Eivissa
The Lessing Gallery, New York, USA
1987 Le Troisieme Oeil, Bordeaux, France
Galerie Du Bellay, Paris, France
1990 Galería Praxis, Santiago.
Galerie MAG, Paris, France
1991 Galería J.M., Eivissa
1992 Barhard-Biderman, New York, USA
Galerie MAG, Paris, France
1993 Barhard-Binderman, New York, USA
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, France
1994 Barhard-Binderman, New York, USA
1995 Jean-Maris Felli, Paris, France
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, France
1996 Atelier du Midi, Arles
Galería Es Molí, Eivissa
1997 Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, France
2000 Galerie J. Bastien-Art, Bruxelles, Belgium
International Saloons and Museums
Modern-Art Museum, San Francisco, USA
Arte Fiera, Bologne, Italy
Royal Academy, London, England
The Male Nude, Home Work, London, England
Arco 82, Madrid, Spain
Figuration Critique, Palais du Luxembourg,
Paris, France
Grands at Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui, Grand Palais,
Paris, France
Triennal Figuratif, Sophia, Bulgaria
Art pour l'Afrique, UNESCO, Paris, France
Museo de Arte Moderna, Republica de San
Marino.
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, France
Museo Ralli, Punta del Este, Uruguay
Dublin Writers Museum, Ireland
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Eivissa
Private Collections
United States, Japan, South America, France,
Belgium, Australia & Africa.
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Andrés Monreal,
the flamboyant maestro at his work
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My hair is turning green 92 x 73 cm
1991
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Cartographie 100 x 81 cm 1997
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La Samba 30 x16 cm 1997
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Desnudo en la tapiz 100 x 80 cm 1998
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Portrait of the artist as a young
man
116 x 89 cm 1998
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Figura arrodillada 100 x 81 cm 1998
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El Toro Escondido 40 x 30 cm 1998
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Impromptu 92 x 87,3 cm 1999
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Etrange interlude 38 x 46 cm 1999
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Gran bodegon 154 x 154 cm 2000
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Danson 180 x 230 cm 2001
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Cabeza en forma de lero 37 x 25 cm
2002
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Bodegon del gato 35 x 26 cm 2002
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Bodegon de la mujer 27 x 38 cm 2002
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Apunte sobre Shakespeare 35 x 27 cm
2002
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Infanta 35 x 27 cm 2002
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Bodegon del caballo 36 x 28 cm 2002
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All Pictures Courtesy of Andrés
Monreal
Details: if you should require any
further information about Andrèa Monreal and
his work then please don't hesitate to contact this
office at your own convenience.
Andrés Monreal next exhibition
is in the Sala Ebusos, Paseo Vara de Rey, Eivissa
and the inauguration begins in the evening at 8 o'clock,
Friday 25th July 2002.
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