'Paisaje Con Personaje Y Niño En Rojo' (Character With Personality and Boy in Red). Original painting by renown Chilean artist Gonzalo Cienfuegos.
Dimensions: 64.5 x 72.5 Inches / 164 x 184 cm (with frame)
Medium: Oil on canvas. Framed in a custom lacquered wooden brown frame.
Provenance: Hand-signed and dated by artist (lower right). Comes with gallery certificate of authenticity.
Edition: Original artwork (#1/1)
Year: 1996
Condition: Excellent
ARTIST BIO
Gonzalo Patricio Cienfuegos Browne was born on October 7, 1949 in Santiago, Chile.
He began his artistic training in 1964 as a free student of the evening courses at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile. Then, in 1967, he formally entered said institution to study Fine Arts, simultaneously, he began studying advertising and marketing at the Institute of Advertising and Sales (IPEVE). The following year, he joined the Faculty of Architecture of the same university as a student, abandoning his previous careers. In 1970 he traveled to Mexico to improve his painting and drawing at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving “La Esmeralda”. After almost four years of stay in the Mexican capital, he moved to live in Buenos Aires, Argentina and in 1975, he returned to Santiago. There he enrolled at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts.
During his stay in Mexico and other cities in Latin America he met and shared with the artists of the so-called New Figuration, a movement led by José Luis Cuevas (1943-2017) and Francisco Toledo (1940-), among others, which exerted a important influence on his painting.
His work has been exhibited in Chile and in museums and galleries in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, France, the United States and Japan, etc. In addition, he has been the recipient of important recognitions and awards, twice winning the Critics' Prize from the Chilean Art Critics Circle (1979 and 1981) and being distinguished as a Full Academician of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute of Chile. (1992).
His pictorial and graphic work is distinguished by fundamentally revolving around the human figure. His characters seem somewhat cartoonish, with defined contours, static attitudes and dissimilar origins. In relation to the latter, Cienfuegos' work is characterized by continually citing recognized works from the history of art, both Western and Chilean, appropriating objects, scenes and figures, but also compositional procedures and modes. The artist borrows icons from painting, from eminent exponents such as Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and Francis Bacon (1909-1992), as well as from the Chilean Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma, which are integrated into the support with elements taken from other contexts. In this way, he generates intriguing, playful images that project new meanings onto the works of the past. Very broadly, in his work we can see the use of a rather harmonious color palette, the introduction of a marked grid and the creation of scenarios where interiors and exteriors meet.
In addition to his artistic career, Cienfuegos has developed other tasks: he has taught consistently at the School of Art of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile as a painting professor. Added to that is his work as a book illustrator in the Design Department of the Ministry of Public Education of the Federal District, during his stay in Mexico. In 1995 he was appointed director of the Tiempos Nuevos Foundation, beginning the construction of the Mirador de Santiago Interactive Museum. Finally, he highlights his foray into theater design, with the creation of the scenery and costumes for the opera “Orfeo y Eurídice”, staged at the Municipal Theater of Santiago in 2002.
He lives and works in Santiago, Chile.