Jose Maria Cal

Surrounded by mountains and nature, it is the perfect space to develop his artistic work. He has lived in the city of Valencia, Spain. He also in the Valencian towns of Xabia, El Puig, Puzol, Tabernes Blanques and Petrés.

Youth and childhood

Because of his love and gift for painting, his father enrolled him in the Barreira Academy of Fine Arts in the city of Valencia. The painters he most admired as a child were Dalí, Picasso and Miró. He then made small surrealist paintings where the Universe was always present. To create his world, she painted and decorated all the walls and closets in his room. Later and due to his inclination towards the artistic, he studied Industrial Design in the city of Valencia. There he learned to really paint. He received classes in nude from life, drawing of the human figure, painting, materials, composition, perspective, study of tonal values, development of artistic projects, etc. All the students went out with the teacher to exhibitions in art galleries in Valencia.

In his Product Design studies, he painted watercolors of landscapes for a store in Valencia that sold paintings and drawings. He also worked for a couple of years drawing all kinds of component plans in a plastic bottle manufacturing line in Manises.

For twenty-three years he worked as a design engineer in an automobile components factory, where he made hundreds of drawings and creative studies with materials such as temperas, pastel pencils and markers in the development of his work. During that stage he was able to acquire an apartment in the city of Valencia and build his painting studio. There he was able to develop his first major works in acrylic painted on the floor and in a process of researching techniques with the use of materials such as marble dust and plaster. It was in the 2000s. His artistic influences in that period were Spanish painters such as Miquel Barceló, Miguel Angel Campano, Mompó, Gordillo and Jose María Sicilia. Later, during his time as a writer, he drew and illustrated all the graphic images contained in his travel, cooking and hospitality books.

Pictorial techniques and formats

After many years using acrylics in his paintings, he began using oil in combination with acrylic. He studied and researched glazes and glacis in oil. He used and tested different grades of varnishes in percentages of alkyd media, turpentine essence and poppy oil. Total absence of the use of black and white. Currently he is focused on abstract landscape painting and the use of spatulas, palettes and stencil printing. Incorporation of the use of white and its enormous possibilities and the application of broken colors (with burnt umber) or complementary ones. Much of his work remains semi-abstract, but he is often drawn outside of his studio by the desire to paint directly from nature. His creative process is always the same. He starts with pencil and marker sketches. Study of values (lights and shadows). The second phase consists of carrying out color studies in small format. Maximum in A4. In that space he can apply the color without conditions, intuitively and in total freedom, performing two or three triads or quadriads of colors in each test. From this small format he transfers those studies of colors and tones to the large format, normally a wooden frame with white canvas and in a size of 1 meter x 1 meter.

Sources of creative influence

The artist indicates that he is fundamentally nourished by nature. The sensations of enjoyment of it are represented in the form of sketches and written notes. He also draws from modern and futuristic architectural design, interior design, cinema and gastronomy. Other artists I am currently following include Rauchenberg, Helen Franquentaler, Jenny Nelson, Pam Evelyn, Ina Gerken and Joan Mitchell.

Conceptual Speech

Investigate and develop abstraction in the landscape. The landscape as the common thread of his work. How to synthesize and geometrize the figurative forms of the landscape itself. Contrapositions are the expressive axis. Flatness-volume, glaze and opacity, complementarity of colors. Saturated and broken tones. Horizontality-verticality. His compositions tend towards abstraction, with a clear intention to represent figuration at the same time. He is interested in the search for light through the vibrations produced by the successive layers of the palimpests. Memories and emotions of the child and adolescent that he was are often present.

Reference figures

His reference artists are Tapies, Andrew Bird, Richard Dieberkorn, Stephen Duren, Piet Raemdock, Pauline Agnew, Danny Gretscher and Vered Gersztendorn among others.

He belongs to the ArteEnred association to be able to share and exhibit works with them within the Spanish Artistic Circuit.