User:Pelagiuss

Jose Manuel Félix Magdalena, spanish artist. Raised among the miners of the coal, in a not really appropriate environment to develop artistic concerns. The contemplation of prints in publications awoke from an early age, interest in works of art and was, for quite a long time almost the only knowledge and approach he had to painting and sculpture.

With facility for drawing and manual skill he didn’t have the appropriate guidance and direction that could direct him towards to future as a professional artist. Initially his parents wanted him to prepare with a trade and if possible a career to get into the industry. He studied at the “Escuela de Aprendices de la Fábrica de Mieres” where he became a turner and working as such in the mining workshops of this Society. He also graduated as a Technical Mining Engineer at the Minas School of Mieres and later, in Art History at the University of Oviedo.

With many difficulties he was able to simultaneously develop his innate artistic vocation with work in the company and create an important plastic work. Essentially self-taught, he studied at the “Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Jorge”, which he didn´t complete. And also drawing practices at the Circle of Fine Arts in Madrid. Disciplined and rigorous, he has been solidly trained in artistic anatomy, perspective and composition as well as technical and material procedures. His prefered tastes, although not exclusive, have always remained within a realistic esthetic. Both in painting and in sculpture, he followed a naturalistic figurative style, of social realism to some extent. In a somewhat unusual and seemingly anachronistic way, although conscious and well-founded, he has opted for a kind of academic classicism. He uses traditional artistic techniques including at the same time new materials.

The thematic of his works has as main guiding thread the idealized representation of the human figure in motion, and also the repertoire of his production goes from the realistic portrait to the highly studied compositional recreation of classical mythology, passing through other types inspired in the work in Asturian coal mines, still life and landscape.

He has taught drawing and collaborated with several articles on art (“Pintores de Mieres”, “Escultura pública en Mieres”, “el Camino de Santiago en Mieres”, etc.) in local publications. In 1992 he published the large-format book “Siguiendo las Estrellas por caminos de Europa hacia Santiago” ISBN 84-604-3653-5, of artistic content with more than one hundred and twenty original original color drawings.

He has works in public places and centers, although most of he´s production has rarely been exhibited individually and is preserved in private collections.

https://www.felixmagdalena.com/