The nocturnal stories of Guillermo Lorca
For the artist Guillermo Lorca, painting is meditating and facing his thoughts. His mind does not stop and his creative imagination is fed by visual and artistic sensitivity.
Between arid hills and large houses that adorn the panorama is the lair of Guillermo Lorca (39). A hand-carved wooden door from India separates the exterior from the baroque-influenced space that shelters the artist's creative imagination. Many believe that a painter's house would be completely decorated with his own works, however only Las ovejas can be found here, which he did in 2012. When asking about others, he invites you to enter his workshop to delve into the depths of his artistic world. There the senses awaken: the aroma of turpentine impacts and an extensive and wide table invites you to feel the different textures that the dry oil generates. With his new project behind him, he begins a long conversation about his career and passion for art.
It all started thanks to his mother —the writer and journalist Beatriz García-Huidobro— who instilled in him a love for artistic expression in all its forms: he had a talent for painting, he read about it, and he owned a large collection of books related to the subject that Guillermo, as a child, devoured. He was fascinated to observe the lines, nuances and details that his mother generated with the brush technique, but above all to perceive the aromas of the paints she used. “The materials I smelled at that time now bring back memories of watching my mother in her workshop and evoke pleasant feelings from my childhood. In a certain way, that made me take refuge in my imagination, in fantasy and in creating through the art. Something my mother instilled in me, which I continue to do to this day," he says.
At the age of 16, he realized that he had talent: his excellent handling of the brush led him to think about how he wanted to express himself. In 2002 he began his art studies at the Catholic University of Chile and in 2006 he went to Norway to become an apprentice to the painter Odd Nerdrum, considered one of the greatest living classical figurative painters. During that time, he discovered the different ways of making and expressing art, ranging from the political to the intellectual. However, he was attracted to magic and how a story can be told from entertainment, mystery and a wide range of colours. “Over the years I have acquired a palette of 10 colours, which are the bases that I use in my works and which I was acquiring through the trial and error that I had in the first five years of my career. However, over time I have been experimenting and it is common for me to add some extra colours depending on the painting I am working on”.
the pieces of the puzzle
L'OFFICIEL: What is your creative process like when starting a new work?
GUILLERMO LORCA: It is an artistic game that consists of a lot of patience and perseverance. I seek to fit the figures that I choose to portray in order to achieve a story through them; just like in a puzzle. There is no exact instruction guide to start a painting, each work has the same objective: to reach different images that together achieve a narrative, but at the same time do it with grace.
His years of experience have made this come naturally to him. It begins with a first spark that arises in your head, often linked to an image or object that was presented to you along the way. Other times he imagines scenes that he later transforms into paintings. “When something catches my attention, it's like a light bulb goes on in my head that is in constant search. I am realizing how some things I found on my way are related to others, but not in an obvious way, but because they produce a sense of correspondence for some non-rational reason”. In this sense, sight is his greatest ally, it helps him observe his environment and see how the narratives he seeks to express emerge . “I can only think how grateful I am to have this sense, which in addition to its obvious uses makes me appreciate beauty and determine my way of being as a human. Not all creatures occupy this sense to function well; in fact, a large part of them -generally the very young ones- are blind. There is a relationship between what I see and what my hands do, which is essential for the very act of painting and enjoying every subtlety in the brushstroke, where one unwittingly discharges emotions and their own way of being”.
In this process the protagonists of their stories appear. First came the famous “girls”, who began as a kind of anime and then took their current form. For Lorca they are a kind of forest nymphs who live inside the paintings and who seek to harmonize the atmosphere of violence in his paintings: the animals he portrays, which symbolize the uncontrollable forces present in his unconscious.
L'O : How would you describe them?
GL : Like the precious, the beautiful and the protection within what is presented. They are vulnerable against danger, but at the same time very powerful. That's why I see them as hopeful and balanced in my works: the more tragic the narrative, the more hopeful they will be.
Over time these characters have become his hallmark. In each of his exhibitions — Paintings in latency , which he held in 2012 at the Arte CCU room; Casita de dulces, which he carried out at the Hilario Galguera Gallery in Mexico, and La vida eterna, which he carried out in 2014 at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago de Chile— demonstrate the importance of artistic play in his stories. However, it is in Splendor at Night, his permanent exhibition at the Barcelona Contemporary Museum (MoCo), where the opposition between sweetness and violence is clearly seen through the presence of these nymphs .
Quiet hours
The relationship the artist has with the night is different from what the human being is used to. Due to severe insomnia problems —which after many years of treatment he has not been able to solve— he spends sleepless nights taking advantage of the eternal hours of silence and solitude Although he's not a night owl of his own free will, he learns to deal with it every day: he works in concert with his thoughts to get his creativity and focus flowing. “I love the night because I can't avoid it. I did not choose her, I am not a man of the night by my own free will”, he comments.
This way of living does not condition his way of working on a construction site. However, he affirms that there is something in the night that he seeks to represent through his paintings: he associates it with the darkest part of the unconscious, with the unknown that he is often afraid to explore. When painting, he delves into those darker places, he confronts them, trying to see their beautiful and aesthetic side. “My head when I paint has a constant noise of ideas and images. I take that out, so that those who follow me can have something of mine in some way. I want them to think of me as an artist who wanted to explore and enjoy life to the fullest, while being a very human person who has his ups and downs like everyone else. I want to express my subconscious and for my paintings to take people to different imaginative places,” he explains.
L'O: In that sense, how do you see your art in the future?
GL: I would like my paintings to be in the most public places possible. In renowned museums and galleries, so that they are not just images found on the internet. It is very different when you see art in places that give you the sensation of temples or that produce tranquility: the ways of reflecting on and encountering a work are vastly different than when it is presented to you on a screen that is over-exciting certain parts of your brain.
Photos: Carlos Saavedra (@carlos.saav)
Styling: Macarena Arias (@kambal__)
Art direction: Matias Thiele (@matiasthieler)
Executive direction: María Jesús Reyes (@jesuresh)
Makeup: Rosario Carvallo (@rosariocarvallo)
Production assistant: Montserrat Santibáñez (@mon1080p)
