Pablo Díaz Merchante, born in Seville in 1982, presents a work that highlights the complexity of tensions, the combination of finishes and the tangible quality of his creations, as well as the relevance of tradition in today’s society.
According to the artist himself, his conceptual approach focuses on the identity of the contemporary human being, exploring the diversification of personalities and the role of the individual in diverse social contexts, both small and large. His recurring themes are paradise and human nature, delving into their meaning and artistic representation.
Meet Pablo!
Who you are
I am the son of a car mechanic and a housewife, grandson of farmers. I don’t say this as an anecdote, I find it is becoming more and more important to know where I come from in order to appreciate what is happening around me.
What you like most about art:
Art looks at us without complexes and without judging us. The freedom to be able to do things and not feel judged is an incredible feeling. Not feeling the burden of your own moral and ethical limits on your shoulders. That’s an addictive feeling.
The least:
I understand art as art itself, the fact, the object and the sensations it conveys. There is nothing there that I don’t like. There are other things that revolve around art and its work. Maybe making the trimesters and packing a painting does not appeal to me so much.
You define your creative practice…
I consider myself a painter, before I used to say old painter because my technical base is in oil painting and my references are not very vivid, but now I simplify to avoid confusion. I am a painter, I paint images.
A word that refers to art:
Sensibility
With whom -artist, gallery, curator- would you die to work with?
With anyone who truly believes in my work. I don’t have an objective of so-and-so or so-and-so, I’m comfortable with who I work with and for me the most important thing is trust and knowing how to respect. Someone who wants my work to grow, I don’t care what their name is.
If you had to choose only one of your works, which one would it be and why?
Wood and flowers for Emilia. It is a painting that I dedicated to my grandmother. In it, besides the sentimental aspect, I found things at a formal and processual level that I have been developing since then and that I still continue to rescue almost in all my works.
An album or artist that could be the soundtrack of your work
Mozart’s Requiem and Camarón’s sevillanas “Vamonos pa casa”.
What is the current state of the art scene?
I come from the Andalusian context and I have just landed in Madrid and I can only tell you my impression.
The truth is that I’m getting into a garden without knowing too much about these issues, but what I perceive is that something is happening, that something important is happening here in Madrid. Maybe everything is being gentrified too much at a national level but it seems that it can be positive. And it is happening in a very natural way.