Felipe San Pedro. The painter’s look.

By Ingrid Pérez Martín

The painting might be the expression of our wishes of retaining what gives us joy. One instant, one look, memory…. which will belong to us forever. With these words we might define the work of Felipe San Pedro (Madrid, 1954), lover of beauty who with this, his first exhibition, enters the world of art in Madrid.

He was interested in painting since he was just a child, and we can recognize in his canvas the fingerprints of famous masters such as Joaquin Sorolla, whose brightness can be admired in works like Patio Cordobes, Slow food en Sicilia or Camino a la playa; the interest in the fragmented look of Gustave Caillebotte, agreeing with him in the selection of bold framings just like Bicicleta en el canal, Perro en el Rastro or Desayuno en Taormina; or Edward Hopper’s environments, whose peculiar atmospheres and mysterious characters come to our minds when contemplating works such as El Sospechoso or Autorretrato (El espejo). But, in addition to recognizing certain referents, his painting obtains an original and fluid result with great spontaneity.

San Pedro applies different treatments to each work, some more euphuistic and some more sketched, but always full of expressivity. Using pictures taken by him as a starting point, he configures scenes which tell us about simplicity of the instant. His characters rarely look back at us and they are abstracted in their daily-based actions, apparently banal, but the subtle look of the painter chose them to be set in our eyes.

This exhibition represents the consolidation of his work as an artist that, after years of research, is presently shown as a kind of file integrated by moments captured in trips, cities, the sceneries of a man’s life caught through the lens of his camera.

El Despertar Café. C/ Torrecilla del Leal, 18 (Madrid). Metro: Anton Martin.

Inauguration: Wednesday, December 15^th, 2010, 20:00h.

Till Dec. 22, 2010.

Free entry.

www.felipesanpedro.com

www.cafeeldespertar.com