Antonia Ferrer

There are artists who, through their simplicity, connect with the roots of tradition. They are what we could call intuitive artists, those who, like a dowser, are able to detect water underground, even in the most infertile desert.
Antonia Ferrer is one of those artists: only with her hands, with clear and simple matter, as if it were only sand or light earth, she is able to connect with oriental painting -especially Korean and Japanese-, giving a flat surface the depth of a landscape, the remoteness of a sea, the darkness of a well.
Ferrer is inspired by many sources: from Tapies his surfaces, from the Mediterranean the light of its beaches. It seems an easy exercise, but in that false and impossible ease lies the quality and passion that her pieces generate. She is an artist at the beginning of a path, a well-trodden path, but one in which, from the beginning, she has left her own very recognizable mark.

“My philosophy is the pursuit of simplicity. I do not allow myself to get so focused on details on their own, I simplify to the maximum. I like to call it ‘my sieve’ which passes only the essential, the significant.
In my paintings I explore primitive materials which, applied in a gestural way, blur the line between sculpture and painting. Almost like a bas-relief.
The process is deeply minimalist in appearance: First, I use the previously worked surface instead of the white canvas. Thus, I create a tactile base of texture and, secondly, I cover it with a bath of color. Then I like to see how the color reacts to the existing marks. Creating light and shadow. Working in this way I produce results that I could not previously plan or imagine. Everything evolves in a natural way, like life.
I manipulate the matter by creating traces inspired by the footprints left by the sea after a storm. When everything is calm. The sea inspires me.
In fact, through the levity in colour and composition, I try to reflect a state of calm, serenity and aesthetic simplicity that leads to the sensual perception of my work.”

Antonia Ferrer