Ibiza-born flamenco ‘painter’ Patricio Hidalgo

The son of an amateur guitarist, Hidalgo lives between Seville and La Puebla de Cazalla (Sevilla), the stronghold of flamenco at its deepest, and wanted to be a dancer and guitarist, himself a teacher at Morón de la Frontera. (Seville) It was Paco del Gastor – until life put him in the dilemma of choosing between “guitar or brushes”.

His works are distinguished by the speed of executionHe is more interested in gestures than physiognomy: “Like when you walk down the street and you recognize someone by a gesture, not by their figure, it is movement that gives life,” says the artist, who turns to videos to portray artists who no longer belong to the realm of the living, to search for their “gestures”, styles, and characters.

Once on a trip to the Netherlands with the ‘Expeditie Flamenco’ company, the artists he accompanied by drawing during his performances took him on stage and set up an easel for him to quickly paint the scene. He started the flamenco rhythm, followed by a few dance steps himself, causing delirium among the dignitaries.

At the end of the performance, which he did not want to repeat, a Dutch bailaora from the company told him: “You are not a painter, you are a ‘painter'”and since then Patricio Hidalgo has adopted a definition that places him in a privileged place in ‘Flamenco Figures’ (Libros de la Herida y Entorno Gráfico), a large-format volume that reproduces nearly two hundred of his portraits. several generations of flamenco.

goblin

“There are folkloric, romantic, and costumbristic aspects in flamenco, and it has often caused it to remain in the epidermis”, the artist insists that “emotions have no form” and insists on the appropriateness of the definition of “painter”.

As to whether he believes in “genie”, Hidalgo says, if he does, he “got you working.”While trying to define it as something akin to inspiration, he concluded that it was “something passing” and should be “mutual”, implying the public’s reaction to the work.

While artists are easily recognizable on their canvases, the ‘painter’ assures that in his works “the abstract is fundamental, because the ‘quejío’ has no form, it is abstract; the abstract helps to preserve emotions, gestures and life”.

But then his drawings and paintings reach figurative, sometimes expressionist realism, as the artist himself tries to explain: “I am moving from the abstract to the figurative, from the figurative to the abstract”. the speed of his lines helps him capture the emotion: “The paintings made me draw flamenco at the speed of a photo”.

Senior photographer Pepe Lamarca taught him that you “must work with your eyes, not the camera,” because Hidalgo explains: “He’s a photographer working with 36 negative reels, and he has to pick a moment, work with his eyes.” Look and connect with the model; That’s how he created icons like Camarón’s or Menese’s, he immortalized them, he went even further” and this ‘painter’ quest that captures character with very few strokes.

black domination

Regarding the minimal use of color and the overwhelming predominance of black in his work, “Flamenco has a very strong emotional charge; I like to be as short, deep, jondo as possible, like a ‘pelá’ ​​seguiriya; I don’t want to embellish the emotions, and color can distort the emotions.” He captured the “woman” and another person he wanted to immortalize the “artist” in black and white.

However, he points out that “color is another feeling at flamenco parties” and introduces color in the works of José Menese, La Yiya, Manuel Agujetas and Dani de Morón, some of which serve as album covers. among other flamingos.