ALBERTO GÁLVEZ
Classic Portraits
The figures in the portraits of Alberto Gálvez gaze from out of time, inviting the viewer to join them in the continuity of timelessness. Gálvez paints the form in grisaille on a colored background, and then applies “successive layers of glazes as if they were transparent skin layers.” Blood courses beneath their skin but their eyes invite or question, rather than reveal.
He uses the painting techniques of the Renaissance and often refers directly to artists throughout history right up to the 20th century with artists such as Edward Hopper and Alex Katz, admiring the solitude of Hopper and the “monumental faces of contemporary society” of Katz. He suggests that the human condition is as it always has been and that over time we have become disconnected from one another.
He often likens his full frontal portraits to the naturalistic Fayum portraits attached to the mummies of upper class people in Egypt during the first centuries of the Common Era. He describes them as “Pictures painted by skilled GrecoEgyptian Fayum painters which convey
serenity and captivate your eyes.”
There is a sense of melancholy in portraits such as Verdes Holandés, the model’s gaze impenetrable, yet inviting—a contemporary woman gazing out from an Old Master’s melancholy palette.
Azul Holbein is a kind of homage to Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/14981543), the German painter perhaps best known for his portraits of Henry VIII and the English nobility. The National Gallery of Art refers to his work stating: “An assured, meticulous technician, Holbein’s insights into the character of his sitters are achieved, somewhat paradoxically, through his cool, emotional detachment and objective, astonishing realism.”
The description might also refer to Gálvez and his portraits, impeccably painted and seemingly emotionally detached—yet quietly inviting connection.