Lorca hieroglyphs and sculptures that seem to melt: this is the work of Andrés Izquierdo, the new sensation of young Spanish art

The artist Andrés Izquierdo surrounded by his works exhibited in the Belmonte gallery. Ángela Suárez

Francisco Threshold devoted an entire book to defending that Federico García Lorca was a cursed poet.

Vicente Aleixandre, a close friend of his, also suggested a somewhat dark vision of him by evoking him "leaning over the high railings of the moon, tragic and sleepwalking."

Lorca did less to confirm this hypothesis.

Always so smiling in the photographs, from his own heart he wrote that "it was a bit of pure water."

The artist Andrés Izquierdo (Madrid, 29 years old) —whose black hair combed back also reveals a widow's peak— looks more like Lorca de Umbral than Federico himself probably did.

A poet, imaginary or not, who according to the Madrid columnist "lived by conjuring up the dark, and provoking mystery."

Between one end and the other of the room that houses the

Izquierdo's first solo exhibition, a death-resurrection trance is sustained.

An effect induced through the support of symbols that belong both to the history of religion and to the personal mythology of the artist.

From the ceiling hangs a paraffin sun that melts into itself.

The lunar phases are reproduced in different pieces as symbolic expressions of the vital drama.

There are crosses and crucified Christs.

Plastic objects that activate the connection with the world of symbols and archetypes that, according to the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, cover the collective unconscious.

The author of these works does not believe in God but he surrenders to these eternal images.

“Religion does not interest me from a political point of view.

I am interested in his ability to create images with a brutal force to communicate.

Exhibition 'The Kid with the mouth in the shape of a Moon', at the Belmonte gallery. Pablo Gómez-Ogando

Izquierdo acknowledges having "a fragile brain."

“I am a person who feels very guilty.

As soon as I get careless and lose mental discipline, I tend to get sad or suffer from anxiety”.

His work, which will be exhibited at the Belmonte gallery (Belmonte del Tajo, 61. Madrid) until January 14, is presented as a search for and confrontation with his own darkness.

The pieces are the result of a journey through his memory in search of his most distant memories: “I have investigated my childhood because I believe it is important to understand the events that forge your personality.

I have also investigated more scientific aspects of brain function.

It is a job that lasts a lifetime and serves to be at peace, and for the rest of the people to be at peace with you”, he comments.

This is his first solo show after having participated in collective exhibitions inside and outside of Spain.

He studied industrial design at IED.

He confesses that his artistic vocation came later than usual: “I liked art as a spectator.

There were three or four exhibitions that I went to see and that marked me a lot, but I never thought that I could do it myself”.

As a student he became familiar with working in the workshop and handling tools.

“At school they were looking for people like Jaime Hayón.

They encouraged you to do things with your hands and create unique pieces”.

He came out looking at the work of artists like Guillermo Santomá, one of the three Spaniards that the prestigious Side Gallery in Barcelona has recruited from its pool of international designers, along with Carlos Fernández-Pello and Izquierdo himself.

He first settled in London and entered as a

designer in the workshop of Michael Anastassiades—world renowned for his lamps with a delicate and perfect appearance.

There he absorbed everything he could, and a year later he headed back to Madrid to start his professional career.

He surrounded himself with people with the same ambitions and concerns and began to work with them.

Before preparing her first solo show, she exhibited in cities like New York (in the

gallery )

either

Eindhoven (

.

He was also involved in projects with the Nave La Mosca in Madrid, where he attracted attention with his works made of materials such as paraffin.

“I think it is something common to other artists.

At first you are afraid or insecure of doing a solo project or show, you feel that no one is going to listen to you or take an interest in you because you have not done anything to us yet and no one knows you”, she comments.

Finally, last February the first conversation about doing an individual arose: "I raised it looking a lot at the psychological and mental state in which I found myself."

In each of his pieces a mental and biographical foundation is perceived.

Lorca's forms and religious symbols are harmoniously intermingled with the collection of images, memories and internal afflictions that she was compiling during the creation process.

“Symbols weigh heavily in my work.

I strive to find images that have poetic potential, and exploit them.

I would like to be able to find a language or hieroglyphic system with which I can communicate with people.”

'Thirteen', a piece that evokes the intermediate age between childhood and adolescence.Pablo Gómez-Ogando

'The Kid with the mouth in the shape of a Moon', a piece made with the patronage of Las Rozas Village.Pablo Gómez-Ogando

The last work he produced is a ceramic daisy with its face covered by its withered petals.

“It is built on the scale of a small child.

She tries to express the state of confusion that occurs between childhood and adolescence.

She has the gesture typical of that age, of hiding yourself behind her hair ”.

Located in the center, all the stimuli of the exhibition seem to have an impact on this piece.

Especially those of the pond/tomb —which shares its name with the exhibition—, and has been created with the patronage of Las Rozas Village.

A committee of experts made up of Evelyn Joyce, Rocío Pina, Sara Rubayo, Ianko López and Luis Galliussi, selected Andrés Izquierdo from among the ten artists who participated in the project led by UVNT (Urvanity Art Fair) and the Village.

Placed one in front of the other, there seems to be a connection between this work, struck by a moonbeam, and the flower-child.

A powerful image that evokes those first verses of García Lorca's

("The moon came to the forge / with his spikenard bustle / the boy looks at her, looks at her / the boy is looking at her").

“It is the child looking at death, a kind of

.

I believe that making your own funerary monument works as an exaltation of life.

Thinking about death is thinking very intensely about life,” says Izquierdo.

'Crux dismember dagger', produced at the Ses12naus residence (Ibiza). Pablo Gómez-Ogando

'Minimal Icarus', made of mdf, polyurethane and microcrystalline wax.Pablo Gómez-Ogando

Michael Anastassiades revealed the importance of mental discipline and meditation in his life, in an interview for ICON.

A philosophy that the Madrid artist replicates in his own flesh: “For four years I have been practicing meditation daily;

more intensely since the pandemic.”

These exercises serve to rest your mind and also to produce a clearer landscape of yourself.

The sculptural series that makes up the show was conceived from a long process of introspection in which he delved into his memory and visited places that had been important in his childhood.

“In the workshop I didn't eat my head thinking about what happened to me when I was little.

But it has worked a lot at the level of images, many memories that have ended up leaking.

There are vital moments that work as stimuli for creativity”, he says.

His name is one of the loudest sounds within his generation.

This group of artists born in the nineties who have found a space in the outskirts of Madrid to develop their creative projects.

In 2019, the

collective contacted the 50 young artists they most admired through Instagram (among whom was Izquierdo) to have them exhibit their works for 24 hours in a building in Carabanchel.

The exhibition functioned as a generational manifesto that also confirmed the artistic exodus to the industrial districts in the south of the capital.

“It is something that has been happening for a long time in other cities: neighborhoods with industrial characteristics are sought where artists find a large and affordable space in which to work,” says Izquierdo.

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