Art Madrid'23 – OKUDA SAN MIGUEL, GUEST ARTIST AT ART MADRID\'18

Okuda San Miguel.

 

 

Suddenly, when turning that corner in that street of Porto, an impressive figure hits your look. It seems to grow up in the road, it seems to spring up from concrete like if it were a creature come from a parallel universe. Tens of facets of color, a geometric organism raises up in front of you and, also suddenly, you realize that you are looking at a phone box. It is an Okuda San Miguel’s, his signature, his shapes that appear on walls, alleys, buildings, bricks of the main capitals of the world, India, Mali, Mozambique, The US, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Peru, South Africa, Mexico and almost the whole Europe.

 

 

Okuda San Miguel. The International Church of Cannabis. Denver. 2017

 

 

His urban essence has enriched with time with the oriental philosophy, with metaphysical issues about the infinite, the universal, erasing the boundaries between the man and the nature, between the man and the art, to create an unique iconography that talks about the contradictions between modernity and tradition, between the homo capitalismus and the homo ludens, between the me and the myself in a continuous transformation.

 

“My art reflects my love for metamorphosis. Playing with the shapes I highlight this juxtaposition within my characters, mixing their profiles and personalities. I paint my faces with geometric patterns to show the equality between the different races, placing all skin types on the same level; this multicolorism symbolizes multiculturalism", Okuda San Miguel states.

 

 

Okuda San Miguel. Refugee Goddess. 2017

 

 

 

The jump from streets to the galleries, to the work in a studio, has been inevitable, a new generation of collectors and art lovers were asking for some fresh air in the market and this artist has brought to them a colour hurricane. "I use colours as a symbol of life and the natural world, while the gray scale in my paintings represents the concrete, death, dust and material of the classic sculptures," Okuda explains.

 

Now, Art Madrid, to celebrate its 13th edition and, why not saying it, to fight against superstitions, has asked to Okuda a little of his magic and he will be the guest artist in Art Madrid’18, joining the list of guests of past editions along with Ouka Leele, Carmen Calvo and Riera i Aragó, all of them seekers of new shapes and experimenters of the image.
 

 

 

 

Okuda San Miguel. Lion. Arcugnano. Italy. 2016

 

 

With Okuda San Miguel, and in collaboration with Ink And Movement, we will develop an exclusive work to Art Madrid and many other actions that we will tell about. Welcome, Okuda!

 

About the artist:
Okuda San Miguel. Santander, 1980. He lives in Madrid, where he also has his studio. Degree in Fine Arts from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. His unique iconographic language of geometric and multicolored patterns on the streets of cities around the world have made of him one of the most recognized urban artists today. Renowned for his large-scale projects, Okuda is recognized for the transformation he made at the end of 2015 of an Asturian church: "Kaos Temple" like it was renamed, which has become a new icon of contemporary art. In parallel with his work in public space, in 2009 Okuda began his own practice of study. Since then, his work has been exhibited in galleries and venues as diverse as India, Mali, Mozambique, United States, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Peru, South Africa or Mexico, in addition to almost the entire European continent.

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.