Fresh from his presence at the inauguration of the 8th International Beijing Biennale, at the National Museum of Beijing with his work Combates Celestiales, as well as a collective exhibition in Hong Kong for the twentieth anniversary of the Karin Weber, the local Segovian artist Alberto Reguera was the protagonist of a live pictorial intervention for the start of the Hay Festival in Plaza San Martin.
With the impressive backdrop of the Cathedral, Reguera conducted his piece based on his own Estelas de transformacion (Trails of transformation). It was “an alliance with space as a privileged work tool, just as a canvas or colours, in an attempt to represent a poetic and abstract world, taking the viewer away from that crowded space, making him participate physically of the intimate side of the expanded abstract landscape”.
The setting excited Reguera as much as anything. Working in San Martin square had great significance for the artist. “It is an emblematic square, where there are elements of modernity and historical elements. But, above all, to me this is also an emotional space, because I was born on this square. I was born in that house above. So, there is a series of aesthetic elements, that are mixed with emotional ones”, he explained.
Given the size of the subject, and as is usual for him, he went beyond the limits of the canvas. For one of the defining characteristics of his art is the experimentation with the limits between space, pictorial matter and the visual depth transmitted to the viewer. The latter, the viewer reaction to the subject, was particularly important in this case. “The way the public reacts to something entirely spontaneous. Taking into account that this is accompanied by music, this is an exercise in synesthesia. Jorge Nava, pianist, who is going to provide music, and I will be painting his sounds”, he said beforehand.
Alberto Reguera (Segovia, 1961) is an artist based in Madrid, who understands travel, both interior and exterior, as a way of life. He has conducted, and continues to do so regularly, individual and collective shows all around the world. In his work expansive painting, pictorial installations and actions, abstract landscapes and photography coexist recurrently.