Carles Guasch,
born in Eivissa to an Ibicenco family about four decades ago, is a real, authentic
talent, a product of the people, the society, the culture of the Island. He
has won his own place under the sun with a very personal style, an enormous
amount of artistic sensitiveness and plenty of fluid work.
One could think
that his works are painted with tears from his infinite blue eyes.
Since very young
he was called by the art; he remembers from his early years feeling a big curiosity
and being attracted by the paintings, by the colours and the expression of the
drawings, much before the notion or even the word "art" came into
his mind.
It was because
of this curiosity, this attraction and will, a real hunger for painting, that
Carles matriculated in "Artes y Oficios" of Eivissa (the local Arts
School) when he was still studying his first year of "bachillerato"
in Santa Maria Institute.
Carles was going
to his art classes by night, because of his other studies. They were special
hours for the ones who had not any other time available, open classes to any
age. He has good memories of those days and speaks about them with tenderness:
"In these night classes, we were people of different ages, with a pleasant
harmony in the group; some were just drawing, some painting, some moulding....
Everybody had a certain amount of autonomy, but good professors guided us. It
was a really good atmosphere, the ideal environment for artistic expression.
"I remember
the background classical music, the smell of the oil-paintings, inks and other
pigments...
"All those
drawings, copies of the figure of the classic "Discobolo" and the
"David" of Michelangelo, or the drawings and paintings of natural
landscapes, helped me later on as a synthesis, keeping just with what it is:
the comparison of colours, the chromatic unity that Nature offers us, to express
it all in abstract forms.
"All these
factors were - slowly, but constantly - introducing me into what is my world
today and I live it like an inseparable part of my life, the artistic expression
through the Plastic Arts."
As soon as Carles
finished his studies of "bachillerato" in the Institute, by the end
of the 1970s, he moved to Barcelona for his university studies, Architecture
and Spanish Philology ("It must be because I felt attracted by the contrasts",
he says). He also matriculated into the "Escuela de Arte Masana,"
an advanced art school, open to advanced and recommended pupils. In this school
the art was more vanguard, it was a good push for his style and technique to
become more personal. Carles started to write the word "Art" with
capital letters.
It was in Barcelona,
during his university years, that Carles had his first exhibitions, the very
first one in the "Ateneo Barcelones," where he obtained a special
award - "Premio de Dibujo Sant Jordi" - then a collective one in the
"Palacio de la Virreina." Afterwards came the private galleries, such
as "Galería Matisse" and "Galería Roc Guinart".
When he finished
his studies, Carles returned to Eivissa, where very soon he rented an old house,
transformed the inside of it, and opened his own art gallery - "Skyros"
- in the old part of Eivissa, not far from the harbour.
Initially, the
art gallery was just a temporary project, a way to jump into the art circle
of the Island. But also Carles had always wanted to collaborate in creating
a centre for the local artist to exhibit and to give a space to new talent from
any part of the world.
"Skyros"
remained open for more than eleven years and there were about a hundred exhibitions
in the gallery, some by young, still-unknown painters, sculptors or ceramists,
but most done by well-known international artists, who attracted a good amount
of sales. At the time it was the most active gallery on the Island.
Meanwhile, during
these eleven years, Carles - along with his work in the gallery - was producing
his own paintings. His work was once exhibited in an individual exhibition in
his gallery, but also in other galleries of Eivissa, including "La Caixa,"
"Sa Nostra" and "Galería Eivissa," as well as In several
Spanish cities, such as "Galería Latina" and "Galería Biblos"
in Mallorca, "Galería Leonardo" in Zaragoza, "Casa Lis"
in Salamanca, "Galería Albatros" in Madrid, "Galería la Cúpula"
in Valencia and "Feria Universal de Sevilla- Pabellón Balear."
He also exhibited
across Europe, "Van Remen Gallery" in Solingen, Germany, "Plech
Gallery" in Graven, Austria, "Wichy Wood Gallery" in London,
UK, among others.
Carles considers
those years as a very interesting experience, a very important way of getting
to know deeply the problems, the hard side of the art, the commerce of it and
all the difficulties involved in it. He says now: "To survive as a business
and maintain an art gallery, in a small town like Eivissa, just with the commissions
on the sales, can only be done with a lot of enthusiasm and altruism."
But those years
were also very important for the number of great artists that Carles met and
the amount of Art that he could observe and study; the day he decides to publish
his own biography, there is enough material in these years for a very good book.
The "Skyros
Gallery" was closed in 1993, not because he wanted it to, but because the
rent became too expensive and instead they opened another shop for the tourists.
Very soon the
next move was to open another art centre -"Centro Cultural Alhadros"
in the Aragón street of Eivissa - with Rosa Hispan, the manager of the gallery,
in which Carles keeps working as an artistic director.
Since then,
Carles has organised, with his partner, in his new gallery, very successful
events, such as new exhibitions with the best artists of the Island and especially
the "Supermercado del Arte," a macro-collective exhibition done close
to Christmas time. The paintings, normally smaller works, are sold without the
frame or glass, therefore cheaper, ideal for a Christmas present and a good
help for the artist because they don't have to invest anything in the presentation
of their works.
Carles continues
with his exhibitions in Eivissa and different parts of the world, such as "Feria
Internacional de Barcelona," "Artistas abstractos de Baleares"
in Madrid's Town Hall, "Feria Internacional-Riparte" in Rome, "J
& C Art Gallery" in New York, "Art Gallery Husstonn" in Los
Angeles and - in San Francisco, USA - "Feria Internacional de Salamanca,"
where they bought one of his paintings for the new Modern Art Museum, to be
inaugurated this year.
His paintings are always
abstract, a little bit like his own personality, but that makes me think somehow
of Ibiza, of the cubic blocks of the "casa payesa," of geometrical
landscapes, of its skies, with very light and ethereal blues, just fractions,
sensitive transparencies on the paintings. Here's what the expert art critics
say:
"Carles
Guasch professes the experimental architecture of the colour. His way of composing
in ideal areas, in estimated planes, with previous and precise projects, giving
to all his art work security and technique quality." - Carlos de
la Viña.
"The art
work of Carles Guasch is full of poetical sensations and suggesting plastic
qualities, as much for the delicacy and transparency of the colour, as for the
pulchritude and purity of the forms, which insinuate harmonic stratification"
- Rafael Perlló-Paradelo.
"Carles
Guasch is the prodigious animator of a procession of relapse blues, a painstaking
discoverer of a mystery of forms and planes, a constant seeker of lyric order,
without automatic processes, but with an intellectual sensibility in perfect
harmony with the chromatic factors" - Raúl Chavarri.
In my opinion,
Carles Guasch is a young man full of art and talent, and even though he has
already done a very big amount of artistic work, because of his age and his
capabilities, the best is yet to come.
Details: If you should require information on
purchasing the work of Carles Guasch then please don’t hesitate to contact this
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