User:Manuela1255/Guillermo Lorca García-Huidobro

** Guillermo Lorca García Huidobro** (Santiago, March 14, 1984) is a prominent Chilean artist known for his unique pictorial language and distinguished international career from a young age. Lorca was an apprentice and assistant to the renowned artist Odd Nerdrum in Norway.

Among his most important exhibitions are "Eternal Life" at the National Museum of Fine Arts (Chile), "Nocturnal Animals" at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center (Chile), "The Encounter" at the El Tranque Cultural Center (Chile), and that same year in London he exhibited individually at Asprey London curated by Simon de Pury. "Splendor of the Night" (2021-2024) at the Moco Museum in Barcelona.

Biography
Born in 1984 in Santiago, Chile, Guillermo Lorca is the son of writer and journalist Beatriz García-Huidobro. From an early age, Lorca was exposed to art thanks to his mother.

"The materials I smelled back then now bring back memories of when I watched my mother in her studio and evoke pleasant feelings of my childhood. In a way, that made me take refuge in my imagination, in fantasy, and in creating through artistic practice. Something my mother instilled in me, which I continue to do to this day."

At 16, he began training with Chilean painter Sergio Montero. Later, he studied Art at the Catholic University, a career he left incomplete, and at 22, after creating a large mural at Viña Tabalí in Ovalle, Chile (2004), he traveled to Norway to be an assistant and apprentice to painter Odd Nerdrum, considered one of the greatest living classical figurative painters. In 2011, he did a residency at GlogauAir Art Residency in Berlin.

Since then, he has resided in Chile, living for periods in other cities.

His Work
Known for his large-format paintings, inspired by dreamlike elements with influences from Baroque and Symbolism, his works often showcase careful craftsmanship, technique, and composition, while also being somewhat disturbing.

"I believe there is a place in our minds (everyone has it) through which we can communicate with our deepest emotional level. My purpose is to find that place and move through the symbolism and spiritual power of my paintings. I want to enter people's minds and find it."

His work, influenced by Baroque, is characterized by themes such as violence, sensuality, innocence, and childhood. It is influenced by classical painters like Rembrandt and Diego Velázquez, as well as new pictorial currents like Lowbrow.

"My paintings are autobiographical but are an autobiography of the unconscious, as if it were a story, a kind of dream that eventually, in the long run, I will be able to chronologically order. Some things I relate to my life, moments, periods when I felt some things that are difficult to articulate, write, and it was easier for me to bring them into images, and they mutate over time. But generally, I don't do literal things in my creations. In the animals, I bring up the theme of violence in nature. It's not about deliberate violence or violence created by man or violence as a pleasure. It's not killing because I want to or out of greed. It's a violence where there is also a surrender on the part of the victims; in some of my paintings with animals, there is an orgiastic erotic component. That sensation of death in the orgasm interests me to show it in animals because it symbolizes well, and I don't need to fall into the erotic. Because when one paints something directly erotic, the interpretation encapsulates, and it doesn't enter. It's like memories, where everything is intertwined. For example, if I had a good time at a party with friends and felt loved, maybe there was a pepper smell that I associate with a childhood memory. A giant spaghetti starts to form. I'm interested in entering those tangential branches and not painting a party to evoke that. I enter another world. It's like what (Marcel) Proust does, where each object evokes different things."

One of the recurring elements in Guillermo Lorca's works are the girls with colored hair. The artist explains this as follows:

"I felt that the girls were the only way to project a vague internal feeling, I couldn't find another character that better represented that specific world. In the paintings, for me, the girl is like an archetypal character that represents myself. This is an analysis I have done after creating the paintings. It represents several things; on one hand, the girl with colored hair is like an inner self, the precious part that remains childlike, beautiful, which is the most valuable thing. And symbolically, it is a precious object, in fact, society defends children with fervor in general. This character is heavily influenced by anime like Miyazaki's work and other animations from the '80s, some from the '90s. So these characters face the internal world, a hostile world, where they are symbolized in animals and different dangers, some of which can be a kind of demon." "The_Landing,_oil_on_canvas,_140_x_110_cm._2019.jpg" Given the size of his works, there is great interest in his creative process. He describes it as follows:

"My creative process consists of different stages. First, I gather small sparks that capture my attention, usually images that I archive, classify, and note. Then, I observe these references for possible combinations until a possibility arises that becomes the impulse for the artwork. Sometimes this impulse appears like magic; other times, it is a gradual process that is difficult to determine. Then comes the production of models or elements necessary to start painting, where I use the best available technology. The final stage is the act of painting itself, which has an almost ritual component and shapes the unique object worthy of being painted."

"There is a moment when your gut moves, something catches your attention, whether it's an image, a memory, references, and they appear without you realizing it. You have the will for them to appear, and wherever you are, you take note. I always write down. And I take reference from the elements and leave them in folders. They can be images, first sketches, written texts, and I start creating a composition spontaneously. Currently, I use iPad Procreate, and I draw lines, paint, compare sketches, stick reference photos, and overlap layers, and I play like that. Adding and removing, but always trying to keep the spirit that led me to want to create that image, and new ideas appear that I include. When it is clear where things are going, I need to produce using the photos I have taken, or I look for images I need as a reference to have a good model for the painting. Then I work in Photoshop, where digital mixing with photos is also done until reaching the final sketch, which is quite structured. After that, it is the pictorial interpretation, which is transferring it to painting, where the techniques are more traditional. Other things are kept in mind: how the brushstroke is handled, the subtlety, some things in the composition change, but I am one of the artists who likes to plan before doing."

Exhibitions
Lorca is the author of a 40-meter mural created at the age of twenty at Viña Tabalí in Ovalle, Chile (2004). Another in Concepción at the Marina del Sol Casino, Chile (2008), and in 2010 at the emblematic Baquedano metro station, an iconic place of the social outbreak in Chile, in the context of the Project Rostros del Bicentenario, where he created six mural portraits to honor the inhabitants of Chile.

He has participated in various exhibitions, including solo shows such as "Dievuska" (2007), at the Matthei Gallery in Santiago, Chile, "Pinturas en Latencia" (2010), being chosen that same year as one of the 100 young leaders of his country. Then at the CCU Art Hall, "Candy House" at the Hilario Galguera Gallery (2012) in Mexico. "Eternal Life" (2014) at the National Museum of Fine Arts, becoming the youngest painter to exhibit individually in that museum with an attendance of over 120,000 people. "Nocturnal Animals" (2018) at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center, Santiago, Chile, which had over 110,000 visits. "The Encounter" (2019) at the El Tranque Cultural Center, Santiago, Chile. And that same year in London, he exhibited individually at Asprey London curated by Simon de Pury. "Splendor of the Night" (2021-2024), an exhibition at MOCO Museum Barcelona, also curated by Simon de Pury.

"His virtuosity fascinates me, his work converges numerous elements of art history."

Simon de Pury.

The exhibition has received over a million visits and has been extended three times due to its reception by the public.

In 2023, for the first time, he exhibited in Asia with his participation in the exhibition "Unpack Reveal Unleash" at Tangcontemporary Gallery, Seoul.

In group exhibitions, he participated in "Rasegna Stampa" (2015) at Castello di Lipari in Sicily and "Hernecia" at the MEAM Museum, Barcelona. Also at AMS Marlborough (2017) in Santiago, Chile, and "Dog in poses" (2018) at the Venaria Reale Museum, Turin.

His work is in major private and public collections such as the National Museum of Fine Arts of Chile, Moco Museum, and New Salem Museum in the United States, among others.

Other
"I saw an exhibition of Lorca in Barcelona and loved it. I learned that he was a disciple of one of my favorite painters, Odd Nerdrum, and liked him even more. Since I saw it, I saved it; I even think I have a postcard. This image in particular seems tender, mysterious, violent, Victorian. All matters that appear in my stories. In one of them, there is also a cat almost as a protagonist."
 * - In 2024, his work "The English Bed" was used by Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez for the cover of her new book titled "un lugar soleado para gente sombría."

Mariana Enriquez

- In 2023, the Mexican writer and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga used the artist's work "The Great Bear" as the cover of his book "Extrañas."

"By the way, nothing explains the novel better than this painting by the great Guillermo Lorca. I don't know him personally, but I told the publisher that I loved this painter and to see if he would agree. But honestly, I love the cover very much; I think he is a tremendous artist," Arriaga comments in a presentation of his book.

Guillermo Arriaga

- In 2010, the writer Beatriz García-Huidobro used the work "Nati" as the cover of her book "El espejo roto," and in 2013 again for her book "Hasta ya no ir y otros textos" a fragment of the work "Candy House."

- Published Books:

1. Guillermo Lorca. The Guide Artists. (2024)

2. The Plenitude Scene in Guillermo Lorca's Work. (2022)

3. Guillermo Lorca: The Eternal Life (2012). Edward Lucie-Smith

4. Guillermo Lorca.

5. Painting outside the box. Edward Lucie-Smith

"He and his creations; children, animals, birds, all presented within a Baroque framework that at first glance seems reassuringly familiar, are in fact, proudly disturbing lords of chaos."

Edward Lucie-Smith

- He was featured in a photographic editorial titled "Unveiling Imagination" by photographer Paz Carillo, which portrayed Guillermo Lorca's contemporary and intimate world in iconic locations in Barcelona, such as Casa Batlló and the MOCO Museum (where the artist currently exhibits).

- Artist Guillermo Lorca has built a large community on his Instagram account, with over 438 thousand followers where he constantly showcases his work.

- Lorca has also ventured into cinema, acting in the film "The Summer of Flying Fish" (2013) by Marcela Said and in the movie Manuel DP's "Them All." ""