Valeriano Cortazar at the Palacio de Cibeles. Madrid

On the past 12th of June, the exhibition of the artist Valeriano Cortazar was inaugurated at the Palacio de Cibeles in Madrid. By lending a space in its offices, the City Council of Madrid seeks in this way to bring art closer to the people of Madrid through its interesting programme “Correos con el Arte”.

This Madrid-born painter, who says he feels at home in informalism as well as in surrealism, sees in painting the means to express feelings and emotions freely, though he does not abandon the representation of the figure either, of which he says he wishes to express what has to do with the attitude of man and his beliefs. He thus turns to faceless figures, which he distorts in order to heighten their message and whose volume seems almost to verge on sculpture.

As for supports and materials, he admits to having no limits when it comes to choosing them, nor to external influences, letting the forms, the patches and textures emerge freely until they take shape as emotions and feelings.

“At times a mystical feeling leads me to seek the purest creativity, an introspection from which emotions and feelings arise that I try to render in a simple and direct way, without adornments that might distract the viewer from contemplating the textures and the colours, because in those components lie the strength and the truth of what I want to express”