BIO

Daniel Rufo (San Sebastián [Spain] 1973) Studied at the University of Fine Arts in Bilbao and at the École Éstienne in Paris thanks to an Erasmus scholarship. Moved to Paris in 1997 where he has since worked in Les Ateliers des Frigos in the XIII Arrondissement. Collective exhibitions in Vitoria (Spain) and in Bordeaux, Romainville and Paris. Works mainly on the themes of the Paris Metro, "Ovid's Metamorphoses" and "Alice in Wonderland" by L.Carroll, as well as sets for theater plays. The work on the work of Lewis Carroll began in the year 2000 with a series of paintings on oil canvas inspired by the illustrations of Tenniel, the Florentine school and the metamorphosis of bodies, playing with technical experiments of materials and saturation as well as formal symbols, the birth of the individual and psychological projection. Furthermore, he participated with the collective “Alice Still Alive” in exhibitions in the capital. The last exhibition took place in December 2023 in La Piscine Josephine Baker; Collective exhibition on the theme “Alice in Wonderland”. The work on Ovid's metamorphoses began around 1992 and today includes more than a hundred paintings, from adaptations of classic works, to personal compositions readapting the mythology with a more colorist vision of tragedy. The Metro portraits are the result of a process where you draw the first person who sits across from you at the metro; we make a sketch where we also note the date, the station where it rises and where it descends; this sketch is transcribed into painting once in the workshop. The series on Commedia dell'Arte features circus and pantomime actors with a taste for dance and harmony. Red chalk or charcoal drawings run through the entire creative process from its beginnings, from portraits to freer compositions, a real field of experimentation for future compositions.

" Beyond the cheerful, almost baroque aspect, we feel something disturbing in the face of Rufo's paintings, between cynicism and derision. So we look twice. It is first of all "pretty", polished in the manner of those portraits commissioned by the nobles and the bourgeoisie, or still lifes that the same people hang, inevitably in the dining room. Then the exaggeration takes over: the figure looks grotesque, the treatment of the light produces an effect like a shot from a too powerful flash, accentuating the contrast between the colors. The subjects appear as if they are made up before entering the stage. Rufo's images could be taken from a dream (Alice in Wonderland is also a recurring subject for the artist). In this period of social gloom (and return of moral order), Rufo's painting, although classical in style, appears as a subversive act by opening a new window of breathing in the world of easel painting." Romainville E.