"The birth of an Art-piece is a miracle. It is the fact that Nature is here and that Life sprouts. We are led by unknown forces. Therefore, we ignore something very important for ourselves, because it concerns us directly."
"The same power that impulses the Nature to exist and the Life to flow is the same energy involved in the artistic creation. So, when the Art-piece is finally born, the miracle has happened. Through the ideal person - the artist - the Nature continues with its creating task."
(Adrián Rosa, Creación Artística)
Brief Biographic Notes
Adrián Rosa was born in Granada (Spain) in 1931, but two years later he was brought to Eivissa by his parents. It became his homeland and he grew up throughout his childhood and youth in Eivissa's natural and cultural environment.
After the Spanish Civil War, in the mid 1940s, as a teenager, Adrián passed his exams in the Instituto de Enseñanza Media d'Eivissa and matriculated himself in the Escuela de Artes y Oficios (Eivissa's Art School) where he studied for seven years.
Adrián knew from his very early years that he wanted to be a painter, so, in 1950 he went to Valencia to enlarge his art studies and matriculated in the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, where he got his degree as an art professor in 1955, and worked as such in the Instituto Isaac Peral de Cartagena, teaching drawing and painting from his cathedral until 1958.
But Adrián wanted to be just a painter, he wanted his own time just for painting, so he finished with teaching and started a long journey through several European countries that lasted for five years. During this time, Adrián painted a lot and exhibited with success in different art galleries (Paris, London, and Brussels); sometimes he had to work in some alternative jobs for a living.
Back to Eivissa in 1963, where he continued painting, with frequent exhibitions in the Islands and mainland Spanish galleries, sharing his time with some periods in Paris and Brussels.
Since 1985, Adrián, as a complete art professor, has alternated his painting with his other vocation as Art conservator and restorer. We can see one of his best restorations in the frescos adorning the vault of Santo Domingo church, in Eivissa Town.
"If in the birth of an Art-piece is done by the intervention of mysterious and unknown forces, in the task of the conservator or restorer, has got to be a big knowledge of the technique, a lot of patience and sensitiveness."
"We are then in front of two activities, involved with each other more just by appearance than as a real fact. On the one hand we have the creator, the artist, acting and painting by impulses, by instinct; on the other hand we have the art-restorer, working in a complete, rational way, exclusively methodical and technical."
"If the creation of an art-piece is a miracle, the attitude of the art-restorer has got to be maximum modesty and respect for the art-piece that has been entrusted to his hands. He must use his knowledge and techniques only to prevent its deterioration, always with most respect for the original art-work and its creator."
Adrián Rosa, Creación Artística y Conservación de la Obra de Arte
Adrián has kindly written (in Spanish) a note about his actual vision of his art, of his actual painting style. Please don't be too severe with my limitations as a translator.
Sobre Mi Pintura Actual
"Por mi edad y circunstancia pertenezco al colectivo de artistas que estudió en las escuelas de arte españolas de los años 40 y 50 del siglo XX. Se tenía una concepción artística en que se valoraba mucho la calidad de la obra artística del pasado, en que se buscaba mediante el estudio una base artesanal sólida, y en la que se proponía para más tarde el llevar a cabo una revolución en la pintura de cada cual."
"Yo he estado siempre enamorado de la pintura del renacimiento italiano, pero también he flirteado con algunos movimientos del siglo XX como el expresionismo o el surrealismo."
"En 1995 llevé a cabo un cambio en mi pintura que he mantenido hasta el presente. Se trata de un cambio en que tiendo a una mayor simplificación de las formas de la realidad y en donde se potencian las estructuras apoyandome en los movimientos cubistas de principios del siglo XX. No he querido hacer cubismo de nuevo, sino aprovecharme de su investigación para de alguna manera hacer evolucionar ese clacisismo que tanto he amado."
"Al vivir en Ibiza en contacto con esa arquitectura rural tan peculiar, tan antigua y tan moderna a la vez, me he sentido un privilegiado al comprobar que me ofrecía ya hecho mucho de lo que yo buscaba."
"En resumen que, sin abandonar la representación clásica de la forma he llegado a un compromiso entre la representación realista de los renacenteistas como Piero de la Francesca o Masccio y ciertas conquistas modernas de los cubistas." (Adrián Rosa, Ibiza 11-Marzo-2002.)"
About my Actual Painting
"Because of my age and circumstances, I belong to the collective of artists which studied in the Spanish art-schools of the 1940s and 1950s decades of the twentieth century. The conception of Art was to value the best of the technical qualities of the art-master-pieces of the past, in which the studies were led to form solid artisan bases, leaving for the future the personal evolution, opening ways for the future revolution in everyone."
"I have always been in love with the Italian renaissance painting and some of the twentieth-century styles, such as expressionism and surrealism."
"In 1995, I took new directions in my painting that I have maintained till nowadays. It is a change in which I try to simplify the real forms and increase the structure of the painting basing myself in the cubism movement of the beginning of last century. I didn't want to do "cubism painting" again, but to profit myself from the investigation of these techniques for the evolution of the classical painting that I love so much."
"Living in Eivissa, directly in contact with our peculiar rural architecture, so old and modern at the same time, I felt myself to be a really privileged being, when I found out that most of what I was looking for was already here, offered to me."
"Without leaving the classical representation of the forms, I have come to a compromise between the realistic representation of the renaissance masters such as Piero de la Francesca or Madaccio and some of the modern advances of the cubism techniques."
(Adrián Rosa, Eivissa. 11th March 2002.)
Artistic Curriculum
1954
S. Braulio, Dibujos, Valencia
1957
Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, Cartagena
1958
Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, Cartagena
1964
Galerie l'Escalier Brussels.
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
1965
Galería Gráfica, Sant Antoni (Eivissa)
Ateneo de Salamanca.
Galerie l'Escalier, Brussels
1966
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
Nouvelle Galerie l'Escalier, Brussels
1967
Galería Gráfica, Sant Antoni (Eivissa)
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
1968
Sociedad Cultural, Eivissa
Galerie La Grande Jatte, Brussels
Sala Vallribera, Sant Antoni (Eivissa)
1969
Galería 5, Eivissa.
1970
Sala Vallribera, Sant Antoni (Eivissa)
Galería Ivan Spence, Eivissa.
1974
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
Galería de Arte J, Blanes
1975
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
1976
Galería Isidoro Maiquez, Cartagena
1977
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
1978
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
1979
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
1980
Caja de Pensiones, Eivissa
1981
Galería Byblos, Palma de Mallorca
1982
Instituto de España, London (UK)
1983
Caja de Pensiones Eivissa
Sala de Arte al Dia. Biblioteca Española, Paris (France)
1985
Restauración de la bóveda de la Iglesia del Convento, Eivissa (Restoration of the vault of this Church)
1986
Restauración de dos cuadros antiguos de colecciones particulares (Restoration of two old painting from a private collection) Eivissa
Restauración de dos cuadros del siglo XVII (Restoration of two XVII century paintings in Sant Antoni's Church) en la Iglesia de Sant Antoni, Eivissa
Galería El Mensajero, Santa Eulària, Eivissa
1987
Restauración del Órgano de la Iglesia del Convento, Eivissa
1988
Sala de Cultura Sa Nostra, Eivissa
1990
Sala de Cultura Sa Nostra, Eivissa
1992
Sala de Cultura Sa Nostra, Eivissa
1994
Sala de Cultura Sa Nostra, Eivissa
1996
Sala de Cultura Sa Nostra, Eivissa
1999
Sala de Cultura Sa Nostra, Eivissa
Personal Donations
1997
Mural for the Escuela de Artes y Oficios, Eivissa
1998
Dos murales (two murals) in the Iglesia de Santa Cruz, Eivissa
Mural in the Centro Cultural de Can Ventosa, Eivissa
All Pictures Courtesy of Adrián Rosa
José P Ribas