Socrates Spain, b. 1966

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Biography
Socrates
Spain
Socrates Rizquez was born in Málaga in 1966 and was exposed to painting at a young age thanks to his father who was a talented amateur painter.
Socrates experimented with surrealism throughout the 1980s, employing a range of approaches. At the end of the decade, he found synthetic enamel painting by accident and established new techniques for creating artworks with the medium.
 
Socrates came upon Pop Art and began experimenting with it by creating artwork for posters and advertisements. He was able to successfully embrace enamel as his sole medium of expression, and began to employ it for a variety of projects after being inspired by the brilliance of the colours that this form of painting provides. The artist visited European museums frequently, especially the D’Orsay Museum in Paris (the source of his inspiration), to study painting directly from the masterpieces themselves, particularly the impressionist masters.
 
Socrates, an intensively self-taught impressionist artist, tackles the hyperrealist style with interest and a desire to learn from the best such as Richard Estes. Socrates’s trips to the artist’s shows provided him with inspiration.

Socrates developed a very personal style as a result of his meticulous study of the impressionist masters and profound contemplation of the most relevant hyperrealist works, constantly focusing on achieving a scene of extraordinarily realistic effect using impressionist techniques and handling. The consequence of this pictorial fusion was a new style of art. “Hyperimpressionism”, as the artist described it.
 
Since 2014, the artist has been creating a series of enamel paintings on New York City, faithful to the evolving style that resulted from his research using panoramic formats in both orientations. The artworks necessitate two distinct viewing experiences. The first stage is for the visitor to enter the room and ponder the artwork, and the second stage is for the observer to approach the painting impulsively, where they find the true structure of the scene’s brash and seemingly abandoned brushstrokes.
Exhibitions