Paco Seoane He is 35 years old and after almost 20 dedicated to his passion for realistic drawing, he currently lives a very important artistic moment. And it is that during 2014 he will present his new works in Madrid, Barcelona, Marbella and La Coruña and will also exhibit outside of Spain. Paco Seoane began drawing and painting with 5 years encouraged by his grandmother and then worked to pay for his artistic training by drawing and selling realistic portraits in pencil, charcoal, pen and pen. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts and in 1997 he began to exhibit his drawings in pencil, charcoal and graphite in many galleries and exhibition halls in Galicia and also in Madrid, Alicante or San Sebastián. Paco comes to Peques and Más to present his work, his experience, his learning and especially the exhibitions he will hold in 2014 and which are called Faces being a very complete and globalizing artistic project based on realistic pencil portraitism. Faces It will consist of three thematic aspects: Expochildren, with children as protagonists, Expowomen with women as inspiration and Expocelebrities where familiar characters are the models for their pencils. Paco Seoane likes a motto that serves as motivation and says that "it is only greatness who cares and pampers even the smallest detail."
What types of drawings do you make and what is the objective you intend to achieve?
For about seventeen years I am specialized in the realistic drawing and in pencil portraitism. I started drawing with only 5 or 6 years and continued to perfect my technique more seriously from the fifteen years in which I decided to dedicate myself to the world of realistic and contemporary portraitism. Initially I started making them in ink and using the pointillism technique. I began by portraying mostly family and friends. The results were quite realistic but I increasingly demanded more of myself and needed more realistic results. From the age of 17 and before starting the Fine Arts Career at the Faculty of Pontevedra, I already began to make my first individual exhibitions of realistic charcoal drawing and then gave the "jump" to the pencil, still looking for greater realism to my works.
Why did you choose to draw as an artistic discipline?
In spite of having painted since I was young and also in the faculty, the truth is that I was drawing where I expressed more easily and where I transmitted everything I thought and felt. I remember imitating drawing, next to my maternal grandmother, the oil portraits and landscapes she painted on her easel. She gave me almost 30 years ago my first pencil case, my first oil bag and a drawing and painting manual that I still keep after having left us. For me, drawing is part of my life, since I have always been drawing since I was a child and I don't conceive my day to day without drawing. It has also been a great personal therapy for me since I was very young and of course I recommend it to everyone.
Working on his work "Adrián". Pencil on paper. (70 x 50 cms). Private collection. 2013 How long have you been drawing and when did you start doing it with full dedication?
I've been drawing since I was little. In my school stage as a child I always stood out in the subject of drawing and I attended numerous competitions winning several drawing prizes at school level, even being awarded with artistic training trips to France and Germany, to expand my training, visit many museums and Meet many artists first hand. I think that my grandmother, before leaving, helped me to discover my vocation but after little by little I realized that I had something inside that emanated from me very fluently and naturally and that I needed to transmit it and express it with my pencils.
If I look back, I see myself always sitting in my class or in my room drawing with pens, with pencils and with black and blue markers. I drew anything that came to mind, anything that bothered me, that caught my attention, that relaxed me or that made me mostly avoid problems: landscapes, faces, bodies, houses, cars, motorcycles and in general Everything I longed for in every moment.
As a child I was not aware that my hobby would become my precious profession
At the age of 9 or 10, my passion for drawing led me to sign up for drawing classes as an extracurricular activity, to learn more about this discipline that caught my attention. Every Saturday morning I left my parents' house early and went up the long slope to my school so that my drawing teacher would continue explaining tricks and resources so that my drawings were improving and gaining in plasticity and realism. I remember in that season drawing still lifes and many everyday figures around me to learn how to work on lace, scales, shadows and volumes. A work at first monotonous and quite boring but that over the years I realized what all that learning and improvement phase would do.
As an anecdote, I can comment that on more than one occasion I helped classmates to pass the drawing exams and prepare their artistic works, since for me it was more a "hobby" than a subject. It is also true that I looked for some anger of a teacher for devoting myself to drawing under the books while they explained the lesson. However, despite these anecdotal and preteen punishments, some of my professors would later commission me cartoons and even portraits in later years. Today I have a beautiful and pleasant memory of that time with only 12 or 13 years and the truth is that I could not imagine that after more than 20 years I could be dedicating myself professionally to the world of realistic drawing, portraitism and art in general. Perhaps in those years I did it without being aware that this hobby would become years later in my dedication and my precious profession.
The artist with his work "The Prince who created dreams". Pencil on paper. (50 x 35 cms). 2013 Why do you work realism and especially, it seems, people as the objective of your works?
I have drawn about many topics, but in recent years I have drawn on what I like to work and what it conveys to me most, which is the human figure and the portrait of men, women, children, babies and even pets. This is the theme of my last exhibitions and of the ones I will soon celebrate. My goal has always been to "portray" both the body and soul of each of my portrayed characters or models.
Why did you choose the pencil and black and white for your works?
Someday I hope to find myself strong enough to explain in more detail why I decided to do without the color for my works. It is a very personal long story that comes from my childhood and especially from my adolescence. It was a very hard and difficult stage of my life, in which many problems occurred within my family and that led me to become independent and "leave home to look for my life" with less than 19 years and until the day of today.
What transmits and inspires me most to draw is the human figure
I can tell you that since I was 15 years old I was selling ink portraits so I could have some money for my expenses and at 19 I decided to leave my father's house to combine my artistic work with other works I had to get ahead. That's how it all started. I could not study everything I wanted because the economic situation at that time was very difficult. My father never liked the idea that I decided to study Fine Arts and was never in favor of "wasting my time" drawing instead of studying another career with a future. It is something I remember with enough pain, anguish and a lot of grief. My father, with whom I lived in my last years before emancipating myself, would have always liked me to start studying architecture, but something told me that my vocation and my destiny would be to draw, as my dear grandmother always told me: " Paco, don't stop drawing. Try to do and live on what makes you happy. " And until today that is what I try every day while I remember it, as if it were yesterday.
Why black and white? Because I always felt "identified and protected" by the color black, for me it was like a "shield of protection", a kind of serious and discreet "dark coat" for me and for my works. Black has been my "favorite color" since I was a child, even to dress. My experiences and my way of being did not allow me to identify or manifest myself with my work through the use of colors and I pursued from that age to get "dignify the black and white drawing" to try to have the same expressive and artistic potential as any work done with vivid and intense colors. Also drawing with pencils was the cleanest and most economical to continue showing my "inner world." An artistic artist needs a priori less space and less tools to work than a painter or sculptor.
My biggest influences are classic realistic art. I am a deep admirer of all the work of Velázquez and Leonardo da Vinci although I am also very influenced today by contemporary black and white photography, such as that of the great photographer Sebastiao Salgado. In the world of contemporary drawing there are great realistic cartoonists, of different nationalities and many of them even my friends with whom I share many concerns thanks to the communication power of social networks.
"La Petite Marie". Pencil on paper. (50 x 35 cms). 2013 What sizes and formats do you choose to perform your works?
My smallest works are 50 x 35 centimeters and the largest are 100 x 70 centimeters although I can custom make drawings and portraits of up to 200 x 200 centimeters. The time of realization of one of my works depends above all on these two factors: the format of the work and its technical difficulty.
Depending on the size and difficulty, it usually takes about two weeks to complete one of my small works and up to eight weeks for my larger works.
Where can we find your works exhibited in 2014?
This year 2014 premiere on May 10 my EXPOGIRA in the Montsequi gallery in Madrid and then I will travel with my works to Marbella, Barcelona, to Coruña and surely to my homeland Marín, in the province of Pontevedra. The exact dates of each premiere are not yet closed but you can see them soon on my Facebook and Twitter page, where I update my works daily, the dates of my expos, new commissions, etc.
"The Tears of Hunger." Pencil on paper. (50 x 35 cms). Private collection. 2013 Do you work to order?
Yes, I have been working on commission for many years, as I mentioned earlier. Especially portraits of children and adults. This last year 2013 I have particularly made many portraits of children since they will also be part of my expogira CHILDREN 2014. An itinerant exhibition about my "personal view" of the world of children and which will be titled precisely "CHILDREN: BY LUCK OR BY DISGRACE". I have portrayed numerous children of different ages, races and social classes. I am very excited about this particular project, because I think it will be a very emotional expogira and that it will convey very positive feelings in the public. I have done this past year a very beautiful casting in which many children have intervened to be portrayed in this exhibition.
In addition to this vision about children, in 2014, I will also expose the portraits that I have made to several well-known characters from the world of communication, cinema, music, architecture, art and culture. The premiere of this exhibition will be at the Montsequi Gallery in Madrid also on May 10, 2014 and I will surely also travel with these works to Marbella before this summer.
"My first challenge, life." Pencil on paper. (70 x 40 cms). 2013 What studies have you done?
As I said since I was a child I have painted but especially drawn. I started as a child with my grandmother and in my school age attending extracurricular drawing classes. In my adolescence I drew in the study of the renowned Galician artist Norberto Olmedo who completed my artistic training until I began my studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts, where especially my drawing teachers and also renowned artists Jose Roselló and Manuel Moldes got that I still wanted bet more on my drawings to dedicate myself to this tomorrow.
During my period of student at the Faculty I combined academic training with my first collective and individual exhibitions, being selected to take part in numerous collective and multidisciplinary art competitions. Given my lack of financial support to continue studying and as a result of having to move on by myself, I had no choice but to leave my studies at the faculty to get a job that would allow me to increase my source of income and thus be able to continue drawing, exposing my works and betting on my difficult and distant dream that was to live on the art of drawing.
As you can imagine, the road has not been easy or pleasant at all, having to work on many things at once, both day and night, but in spite of everything, I keep saying that it was worth it and still worth it, since It is what makes me closer and closer to my happiness and my personal fulfillment. I am 35 years old and I think I still have a long and intense way to go. The path that I have chosen, the one that inspires me and the one that motivates me every day a little more.
"Lola." Pencil on paper. (50 x 35 cms). Private collection. 2013 What is the experience of publishing a large part of your work on social networks?
For me it has been one of the best things that has happened to me, really. I never imagined that this would be possible before the arrival of the Internet and social networks. I have been able to reach many places in the world in a relatively short time and fortunately my pencil works are known in many places and by many people of different nationalities. For me this is already a reason to feel very happy and a great personal and artistic achievement.
Through social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, I receive and feel every day the support and admiration of many friends and followers who share and value my life path as much as I convey with my "reality drawings", as I call them .
Social networks have allowed me to spread my work all over the world
I do not know if it will be the best path, the most useful tool or the most advisable platform to be known and especially recognized, but a very important means and avenue. In addition, in my particular case, social networks have helped me a lot to share my emotions through my drawings and thanks to that it has been very gratifying to receive every day the love and encouragement of all the people who follow and bet on your work . In addition, it is true that I have also opened many doors when receiving orders, proposals for exhibitions of many gallery owners, collaborations with other artists, charitable exhibitions, participation in competitions, etc.
"The Hideaway of the Little Rogue." Pencil on paper. (70 x 40 cms). Private collection. 2013 Who were your idols of small drawing and how have you evolved since your first drawings?
As I said before my inspirers have been Velázquez and Leonardo da Vinci, especially. If I had to choose even my favorite works I would not hesitate to choose the "Forge of Vulcano" and "Las Meninas" by Velázquez, "The Last Supper" by Leonardo de Vinci or his famous drawing of the "Vitruvian Man". Thanks to them I have taken the pleasure to draw the human figure, foreshortenings, portraits, body expression of men and women, the love for the study of anatomy, etc.
Other of my favorite painters have been Goya, Dacroix or Gericault, although I also admire other styles such as cubism, surrealism and even abstraction, being able to know live the work of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Barceló, Miró, or Antoni Tapies. All of them have contributed a lot in my artistic evolution, but I am sure that this has happened to 100% of the artists who dedicate ourselves in body and soul to realistic art. Everyone can have their personal influences but without a doubt there are artists who have influenced us and marked us all. I love sculpture as well as the classic, the most minimalist and avant-garde. I was very inspired to see live works such as "El David" by Michelangelo, works by Chillida, Giacometti or my admired Galician friend and countryman Francisco Pazos.
Portrait to the journalist Nacho Montes. Pencil on paper. (70 x 50 cms). Private collection. 2013 Who are reference in the drawing at present in Spain and in the world according to your opinion and criteria?
Honestly, today my references in drawing in Spain are for me Carlos Muro and Carmen Mansilla. Two great and veteran artists and artists. With Carmen Mansilla, I have the honor of currently exhibiting at the National Drawing Prize Antonio del Rincon of Guadalajara in which she has been awarded as a winner this year. In addition there are other artists who I also admire and follow as are Marcos Rey, Galician like me, and Rubén Belloso. In the discipline of painting and specifically in the portrait in Spain I value and I am very inspired by the beautiful and spectacular works of Antonio Beguer (oil painting) or Alberto Perucha (digital painting), Ascensión Serrano Martín (oil painting) and Enrique Donoso (oil painting), fellow artists and friends who live their work with passion.
Outside Spain I must say that I deeply admire the work of Omar Ortiz, Paolo Troilo, Magda Torres Gurza, Simon Hennessey, Alyssa Monks, Pascual Parra and of course Dirk Dzimirsky.
Portrait of Kiko Matamoros Hernández. Pencil on paper. (100 x 35 cms). Private collection. 2013 What are your next projects?
My next projects for this year is mostly my expogira that opens at the Montsequi Gallery in Madrid and that will continue through Marbella, Barcelona and La Coruña. An individual and itinerant exhibition in which I will expose my "drawings of children of the world" and also my portraits to well-known characters from this country and who have opted for my pencils to portray them: the writer and journalist Nacho Montes, the presenter Jesús Vázquez, the actress Ana Milan, the designer Franco Quintáns, the actress Ana Gallego Coin, the photographer Máximo Arroyo, the architect Joaquín Torres or the hairdresser and image consultant Antonio Garrido, the television collaborator Kiko Matamoros and his partner the model Makoke and many more.
Portrait to the presenter Jesús Vázquez. Pencil on paper. (70 x 40 cms). Private collection. 2013 Parallel to my exhibitions, of course I continue doing my works and portraits in my studio in Galicia.
I end by thanking Paco Seoane the time dedicated to Peques and Más, the generosity of their responses and their commitment to sharing their work. We especially wish him many successes in his exhibitions in 2014 and we hope that his drawings and compositions continue to give him many joys.
