antuan

Newsletter 08

October 24, 2022

October 2022

Sana Sana opening

Sometimes things don’t go as planned and this was one of them. Just the day before the opening I got a positive test for COVID and we had to postpone the party. My wife and daughter were positive too but we all are ok, just some little symptoms. We’ll make a proper guide visit or “rentrée” in the next weeks but in the meantime, the show is open to the public and I have added all the paintings to the online shop.

Gallery: My Name’s Lolita Art

I’d love to talk you a little about one of my favourite galleries in Madrid: My Name’s Lolita Art. Located at C. de Almadén 12 in what we call “El Barrio de las Letras” because all the writers that lived there during the XVII century. This neighborhood has a lot of history and is near the main city museums as El Prado, a location full of art galleries, theaters and lovely places to eat or just have a drink and enjoy a taste of the old Madrid. Owned by Ramón since 1988, I must admit he has a really good eye to catch new talent and a pretty interested rooster of consecrated artists as Paco Pomet, and most of the best shows I’ve seen this year had been at his gallery. He is a perfect host and always finds time to talk to you about the shows and you can see his true love for what he is doing. Definitely a place to visit if you love art and you are in Madrid.

My name’s Lolita art website

NFT’s

In the past few months I’ve been asked about selling some of my paintings as NFTs and the time has come. I know this is uncharted territory for a lot of people but, after some digging and consulting with some old fellows from my past life as a web developer, I’ve decided to start my own collection at Opensea. I’ve listed four of my bubble gum paintings there as unique pieces. Take a look and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask! Click here to visit.

See you next month,
Thanks!

Newsletter 07

July 30, 2022

July 2022

New shows this fall

September 1st
I’ll be part of a group show here in Madrid at the Sara Caso Gallery. It’s been a last minute deal but I’m truly happy that Sara and her team are giving me the chance to be part of something new and fun.

October 22nd
Next one will be something different from my current line of work, I’ll have a solo show in Navel Art about medicines still life paintings. It’s something I’ve been working aside and the people’s response has been great so far, I’m so excited about how this new theme will grow with time. More news will be posted when the show opening is near.

Art shows I loved

This month we got the chance to visit two great shows here in Madrid. The first one was a retrospective about Alex Katz at the Thyssen Museum (one of the Big 3 in the city). I didn’t know much about this painter, but his huge portraits were impressive in their simplicity and learning he kept painting until his 90s gave me hope (or the chills). The second one was about a spanish photographer: Gonzalo Pérez Siquier. His photographs of people at the beach were incredible, specially when you find out they were taken in the late 70s and the 80s. His work is still influencing lot of contemporary photographers, pretty awesome.

I hope one day our daughter loves going to art shows as much as we do, right now she spends most of the time sleeping!

Summer plans

We’re going on vacation for almost all august so there won’t be any more painting until september. Since the both of us are not from Madrid is time to visit our parents and let them enjoy their first granddaughter and maybe give us some rest. In the meantime I’ve activated a summer discount on the shop so you can get a 30% off until august 31th, but shipping will have to wait until september. Just use the code “SUMMERSALE” on checkout and it will be applied.

Hope you and yours are ok and having a good time.

See you next month,
Thanks!

Newsletter 05

May 23, 2022

May 2022

Back to school!

I’ve been following Miguel Gómez Losada’s work for a few years now and this May I had the chance to spend a weekend with him and some fellow artists. Just painting and talking about painting, and our different approaches to our practice.

Thanks to the people of Fresco.Arte we had two wonderful days where Miguel talked about how painting is more related to poetry than photography and how to get rid of our inner prejudices, in terms of our skills, when we paint and how to build our own worlds. I found his take on painting truly inspiring and, since I’m exploring my “surreal” side after all these years, I’m feeling the need to care more about what I’m telling that how I’m painting it, or as I read somewhere: “less details and more poetry”.

Check Miguel’s work on instagram, it’s pretty awesome.

https://www.instagram.com/miguelgomezlosada/

Art shows I loved

Two shows caught my eye this month. The first one was Miguel Coronado‘s at Ansorena (one of my favorite galleries in Madrid). I discovered Miguel’s work a few months back and seeing it in person for the first time was awesome. The way he loses the figures but you still can recognize what you are looking at is so beautiful.

The second show was Paco Cachadas’ at Veronica del Hoyo y Colino. A new gallery I didn’t know about but worth keeping an eye on, their next shows are quite promising. Paco’s work is more classic, in a figurative way of speaking, but the subjects he chooses and his interiors have some kind of mystery that keeps you staring at them.

Paco Cachadas @ Veronica del Hoyo Gallery

Digging into surrealism

With each passing month my confidence about this line of work grows and things are starting to take shape. I have a lot of new rough sketches waiting to become paintings and I’m also playing with 3D software to get better references for what I’m looking for. I’m really happy with the outcome and really excited with what’s coming next. Some of the pieces were added to the shop and you can always follow my progress on instagram.

See you next month,
Thanks!

Ver esta publicación en Instagram

Una publicación compartida de A. Grahovsky | Oil Painting (@agrahovsky)

Newsletter 04

April 26, 2022

April 2022

Dolores

Finally our first daughter was born on the 11th and we are so happy! She’s doing great and letting us sleep at night (thank God). Charlotte (the mother) is also recovering pretty well, can’t wait for all that is to come. By the way, if you haven’t seen my wife’s totally awesome tattoo work this could be a great time 😉

https://www.instagram.com/charlotte_tattooing/

Art shows I loved

Julio Larraz @ Galería Marlborough, Madrid

Before the baby arrived, we managed to visit some art shows of two artists I’ve been wanting to see their work in person for a long time, Julio Larraz and Paco Pomet. Each one of them approaches contemporary surrealism in a truly personal way. Larraz plays with some childish vibes and vintage aesthetics building scenes as if you were looking in to someone’s dreams, while Pomet builds odd narratives intervening monochromatic pictures with unexpected elements. It was great to be able to take a closer look to these works. If you like art, please go to art shows anytime you can. There’s a physical component to painting that has to be experienced alive.

Paco Pomet @ My Name’s Lolita, Madrid (detail)

Did you know?

The first bubble gum portrait dates from December of 2012, 10 years ago!

It was the time before I learned to paint with oils and was made digitally with photoshop. The next bubble gum portrait was “How far is a light year?” and it only took me four years to get there.

I’ve been thinking about how to make these newsletter more fun so I’m gonna leave the comments open in this newsletter in case you wanna comment or ask anything, don’t be shy! (Just be polite with other people).

Thank you all!
– A

Newsletter 03

March 17, 2022

March 2022

JustMad 2022

Thanks to the people of Navel Art (big thanks to Teresa and Carlos for all their work and support) I had the chance to be a part of this year’s “Madrid’s art weekend” at JustMad art fair, one of the most important for emerging artists here in Spain. I shared the space with abstract painter Lidia Sancho and we made a great team bringing a lot of color to the place.

It’s been a great opportunity to meet other artists, art critics and to speak with some fans and meet new ones, thank you everyone! It’s also been pretty exhausting but totally worth it.

I don’t usually have the chance to speak with other professionals about our work and it’s been great: Ira Torres, Rafa Jiménez, Rafael Blanco, Yves Sadurni and Juli About just to name a few (you should check their work).

New line of work

For a while I’ve been thinking about new directions in my work and something that always interested me was surrealism. Nothing that I haven’t tried in the past with little paintings, but this time I wanted to go a little further. For example, “The stuff that dreams are made of” is a painting of 64×52 inches, the biggest one I’ve painted ever. I have updated the Art Gallery page so you can take a good look at these and some new bubble gum portraits.

Extra ball: Album cover!

Last summer I was asked by the LA funk band “The Main Squeeze” to paint a portrait for their next album “To be determined…” and it will be finally released on April the 1st. Can’t thank them enough for giving me the chance to be part of something so beautiful. Love their music and their mix of styles!

What’s next?

As I said before, we’re expecting our first daughter for the first days of April and we can’t be more happy about it (and a little nervous) so, I don’t know if there’ll be a newsletter next month. I’m going to take some time to help my wife with everything but I’m sure I’ll be back before you even know it 🙂

In the meantime the shop has been updated with some new framed originals (with custom floating pink frames) and I keep posting some new process and reels on instagram, don’t forget to show some love!

Thank you all!
– A