Alicia Fernandez – MEETINGS AND SENSATIONS

Meetings and sensations

Since the days of the Renaissance, the link between art and science has been considered the fundamental pillar of innovatory art. Thus, the masters Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leon Battista y Leonardo, among many others, thought it necessary to use scientific knowledge in development of artistic creation. Today, technological development allows us to enhance this link, and several artists make use of such synergies in their creative work.
Koldo Etxebarria is one of these: in creating his works he uses the latest generation of digital programs and tools. Through advanced infographic procedures, and algorithmic procedures he builds pictures with modern syntactic codes, in which the pixel is used as if it were the pigment. This method is innovatory by comparison with the classical techniques and resources, and is directly related with the contemporary semiotics and sensitivities of the language of video and multimedia.
Nevertheless, the artist distances himself from the habitual coldness of this type of process through an intensely passionate attitude in tune with the human dimension of the work of art. The authentic function of the work of art is for him that of a mirror that reflects the real, personal central dimension in which harmony and the aesthetic sense are fundamental. In this sense his images act as meeting places which generate stimulating sensations, because he pays special attention to the aesthetic regard and the human space. Consequently, he uses light, colour and space, as well as structural and compositional elements and organises them in a global way.
Koldo Etxebarria (Lemoa, Bizkaia 1960) studied Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country. He graduated in 1983. Since then he has worked in the Artistic Department of ETB. The whole of his work has evolved in relation with infographics and new technologies applied to art research. In 2005 he won the accessit in the III National “Art and Technology” Painting Contest at which he had won the second prize in 2002. In 1990 he was selected in the “Imagina” International Exhibition of Art through Computers in Montercarlo.
In 2006 his figurative painting “To be delight” (2004) was awarded second prize by Ertibil Bizkaia. More recently, in 2007 he has won the second prize again in the IV National “Art and Tchnology” Painting Contest.

All his prize-winning works have been created with the Autodesk Maya computer programme and the use of photography. He continues to develop this method in his most recent works. Their compositions show an extreme sense of order and restraint in which everything seems to be measured according to cool balanced rules and a metaphysic aesthetic that flows from the stopped time. The picture “The Inhabited Space as Metaphor of the Being” is the best instance of his approach. It reflects his preference for representing open spaces: porticoed squares, corridors and arches in which a figure always appears, usually from the back. This type of venue also expresses his devotion for the pictures that show the human being’s aesthetic and poetic dimension; they are also evocative of beauty. Silence, stillness, even worry and mystery contribute in these compositions to enrich the atmosphere surrounding the people represented by the artist.