Discovery: Nuria Postigo

Last month, I was walking in downtown Seville and, after a little copa in the local tapas bar, meandered into L’Image, an art gallery in Central Seville.

My eyes set upon Nuria Postigo‘s painting. Serene, colourful, peaceful and abstracted: I’d never seen or heard of this artist before, but was taken by the technical mastery and artistic flair of her work. Enchanting but easy to view, it wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder – a few pieces of hers caught my eye. See her instagram here.

The art shop was bustling with locals buying art, choosing frames and rifling through the print rack, so I left………but not before taking a couple photos for reference and making a couple of notes. I found on wifi that she’s a relatively young contemporary Andalusian artist, with travels incorporating the UK, Portugal and other European countries.

You see, this doesn’t often happen to me – that I happen upon a high street gallery and find an artist I like that much. (See my thoughts on high street galleries here.) It is easy to find paintings at exhibitions and art fairs that you think are great, but rarely does the whole portfolio and the style of one artist ‘speak’ to you.

Nuria’s talent stood out – both obvious technical ability and confident artistic flair.

For example in ‘Torre De Oro’ – the tower is detailed – architectural, linear and accurate – you can see the portals and the tiles on the roof, the stones of the construction. But the building is suggested, not entirely complete, and the composition is shrouded in a softness, an uplifting mist, which adds character, warmth and feeling. It is clear these images were made with love.

And this isn’t a one-off. Nuria often uses real places and landmarks as her subject matter – whether the Torre De Oro of Seville, the Portuguese landscape, Triana in Seville or the Cupola in Florence, her works are part architectural technical drawing. And the way Nuria works with light, form and colour she introduces a heaven-like otherworld, a dream state. And actually the pictures are really quite still.

Her work seems to take influence from the colourful and expressive works of Matisse and Kandinsky, but have the technical ability of Francesco Guardi, Canaletto’s successor in Venetian landscape – dreamlike, based on reality but gentler on the eye and candy to the imagination.

In sum, these works are easy on the eye – you would want one on your wall at home. (Again, rarely do I say that!) I’m returning to L’Image in a week…oh, and I have a spare white wall at home….