Enrique Zabala

My artstic career is inextricably linked to the pictorial tradition developed since the second half of the 20th century in Europe and especially in the USA.

References combine interests from Pop Art with aesthetic concerns closer to Realism, without excluding sociological reflection from other pictorial schools. His works, generally clear and sharp in appearance, face however, thematic and conceptual backgrounds that place the human condition in front of a mirror. The resulting reflection is not the expected one, as the stylistic sharpness of his paintings serves to further highlight the double play of contrasts between what is shown on their surface and what lies beneath.

Presented for the first time in the USA in 2014, the Las Vegas series offers as inseparable elements the characteristic landscape of its environment and the architectonic transformation of this same habitat. The blinding light of the desert, so near to the city, finds its response in the artificial lights of the casinos’ interiors, the game machines and their attractive signals, which emulate fantasy without schedules or possible rest. Apparently banal scenes, with settings on occasions like those of photographic snapshots, are resolved as works of great formal complexity and with refined technique. These features end up being essential contributions of his artistic gaze.