The exhibition ‘Japan in Los Angeles’ destroys her cliché as a realistic painter and rediscovers her through a hundred works. “I only paint what I can photograph,” said Avia, who showed the beauty of buildings and facades damaged by the passage of time.
He never took his donkey into the street where he used to walk so much and which he would rather have left. Amalia Avia (Santa Cruz de la Zarza, Toledo, 1930 – Madrid, 2011) got lost in Madrid in cloudy weather to photograph her daily life. His photographs served as models for his paintings, veritable diaries of absences. Mistakenly labeled as a realist painter, her work was left in the shadow of colleagues and friends such as Antonio López, giant of realism. Now Avia’s work is discussed and the cliché of realism that weighs it with the exhibition ‘Japan in Los Angeles. Amalia Avia’s files.
On poster until January 15, 2023 in the Sala Alcalá 31 of the Community of Madrid, rediscovered one of the most unique figurative painters of her generation.
It brings together 113 pieces selected by Estrella de Diego, professor and curator of an exhibition that assesses Avia’s work with new criteria to avoid clichés and platitudes. Characterized by those paintings of everyday life that caught Avia’s attention, it is the first major retrospective devoted to the painter in 25 years. It is also a tribute to the artist from Toledo with a Madrid soul who set her sights on the capital, whose cityscape she liked to recreate without people or cars in a painting that today is experiencing a just and sweet rebirth.
De Diego has sought new perspectives that delineate the actual use of photography as a model in Avia’s work. The photograph was his starting point to later capture in his paintings the peculiar atmospheres that seduced him so much. “What do you call someone ‘realistic’ who never makes literal copies, but rather sentimental translations which, seen from the reordering of their archives, are a record of the passage of time, its destructions and its grace?” notes De Diego on. .
Divided into three sections -‘Daily Life’, ‘Empty Cities’ and ‘Found Objects’- the route is punctuated by photos of some of the capital’s most emblematic buildings, monuments and neighborhoods: Puerta de Alcalá, Puerta del Sol, the Palacio de Cristal del Retiro and the neighborhoods of La Justicia, Recoletos or San Bernardo frequented by this “painter of absentees”, as Camilo José Cela baptized her.
Avia recreates doors, facades or windows that, with detailed details – graffiti, chips or cracks – transport the viewer to that vanished Madrid that the artist observed, toured and photographed with her husband, also a painter Lucio Muñoz, and their four children. and then paint them. “I paint what I can photograph,” said Avia, showing the beauty of some buildings whose facades had been damaged over time.
He almost always avoided the human figure, and when he did, he painted the backs of characters that seem to go away. His conscious desire to avoid people bears witness to the feeling that Avia often explained: he was not looking for technical perfection, but to reflect the imprint of man, through the anonymous lives that attracted him so much.
He stopped at details that usually go unnoticed in walls, shop doors, furniture or fixtures. He painted subway stairs, hairdressers, taverns, markets, Sunday mornings without traffic or passers-by, but also residential interiors with dining rooms, kitchens or bedrooms, focusing on everyday objects such as rocking chairs, sewing machines, chairs, dressers or beds to which he dedicated a unique series.
“For some viewers, the show will be an exciting reunion and for others, the true discovery of an artist as personal as she is oblivious to fashion and trends,” emphasizes the curator.
The exhibition focuses on her technique and the process of working with the photos the artist took in the street to transfer them to the canvas in her studio, confirming a very original way of conceiving her pictorial production. “I stuck newspapers on the broken walls of the facades so that when peeled off the oil would create very real textures and gradients,” explains Rodrigo Muñoz Avia, a writer and son of the painter, who has managed to create almost a hundred scattered works and not cataloged by his mother, author of a thousand canvases.
Some works to which Avia gave an unusual finish. When the painting seemed finished, he left it on the floor, sprinkled it with turpentine, and set it on fire. According to her, the fleeting flames gave the facades and doorways a unique expressiveness.
Avia began her career as a painter in the 1950s, in Eduardo Peña’s studio in Madrid. After that, she met many of her friends and future classmates, including the painter Lucio Muñoz, a master of abstraction whom she married in 1960.
His first solo exhibition took place in 1959 at the Fernando Fe Gallery in Madrid. He then worked with the galleries Juana Mordó, Biosca and Juan Gris. She was part of the group of friends known as ‘Realistas de Madrid’, along with Esperanza Parada, Isabel Quintanilla, María Moreno, Antonio López, Julio López Hernández and Francisco López Hernández, and participated in numerous exhibitions on Spanish realism on worldwide.
In recent years his work has been shown in the galleries Leandro Navarro and Maisterravalbuena, both in Madrid.
In 2004, he published his memoir, “From Doors Inside,” which was crucial to understanding his personality and the historical context in which he worked. His work is in important collections and museums, such as the Reina Sofía in Madrid, Artium in Vitoria, Bank of Spain, Círculo de Bellas Artes, BBVA, Banco de Santander, Enaire or Fundación Juan March.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
