VIEWING ROOM "BARBARA"

"Girls" Series

From the origins of art, the figure of the woman has been a recurrent and fundamental theme. Throughout history, she has served as a symbol of fertility, divinity, idealized beauty, and, more recently, of individual identity and emotion.

The tradition of the nude in Western art is rooted in classical antiquity, where Greek sculptures celebrated the anatomical perfection and ideal grace of the human body, both male and female.

However, in the Renaissance, the female nude took on a new prominence, often justified under mythological or biblical pretexts, as in Titian's famous Venus of Urbino.

With the arrival of Impressionism and subsequent movements, the representation of women became more personal and less idealized. Artists like Manet challenged conventions with works like Olympia, which presented women not as distant mythological figures, but as real people with a direct and defiant gaze. This shift marked the beginning of a more complex conversation about the woman's role as a subject, and not just an object, of the artwork.

In the 20th century, artists like Picasso and Modigliani deconstructed and reinterpreted the female figure, exploring her form and psychology in abstract and expressionistic ways. The nude ceased to be exclusively a matter of beauty and became a means of exploring human identity, power, and vulnerability.

Within this long and rich historical context, the following works emerge as a fascinating dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity. The series dedicated to portraits of women and the nude are not a simple continuation of established canons, but a profound reinterpretation of the female figure through a masterful hyperrealistic technique.

In the nudes, the figure is stripped of any narrative or mythological artifice, placing her directly and honestly at the center of attention. The models are not simply "Venuses" or "nymphs," but women with a tangible presence and a palpable inner strength. It is an art that invites the viewer to look closely, to find beauty in imperfections and in reality, and to reflect on the individuality that resides in every human being. In this way, it also pays homage to a millennial artistic legacy, offering a fresh, powerful, and deeply human vision of women in the 21st century.

–Javier Arizabalo