Ignacio Navarro

RESUME ARTIST, EXHIBITIONS AND PUBLICATIONS


Born January 25, 1953 in Córdoba, Andalucía, Spain. In his family there were previous artists, such as his aunt Aurelia Navarro, wellknown and recognized painter of XIX-XX Century. She won several Honorific Mention and two times
Third goals from National Exhibition of Fine Art, in Madrid years 1904, 1906,1908.

Ignacio Navarro’s artistic talents were recognize early on. Starting at age seven, he participated in the “Infant and Youth Fine Arts Awards” in Córdoba and earned the “Honor Diploma” in 1961, 1963, 1964 and 1967. As a grade school student, he studied painting and drawing under the renowned Córdoba painter Miguel del Moral, who founded, with other artists, the cultural revierw, known as “Grupo Cántico”, 1947.

As a young man, from 1971 through 1973, Navarro studied at the School of Fine Arts in Córdoba, Granada and the Fine Art College of Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville.
For the next 20 years, Navarro traveled throughout Europe Africa and Asia
refining his skills, learning new techniques and gaining new artistic and philosophical perspectives.
It is a prolific period of artistic growth for Navarro.
Collections of drawing and oil paintings were begun during this time in the United Kingdon, Italy, Portugal, France, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Marruecos and Argelia.
The colleection of prints known as “punta seca y aguafuerte” was started in 1982 in his native state of Córdoba. In the some year, the Opel General Motors Corporation commissioned a large painting for this play incorporate headquarters.
The art and skill of working in ceramics dominated Navarro’s attention in Seville and Triana from 1986 through 1988. This experience led Navarro to open the Ceramicas Almohaza, S.A. in Madrid to showcase the work of ceramic and porcelain artists in 1990.

Today Navarro works in his own studio in Manilva,Málaga, Spain, where he lives with his family.
He focuses his skills on personal painting and at the same time he accepts specific orders for painting, drawing and ceramic works.


PUBLICATIONS

 Elle Decoración. February 1992.
 Mujer. May 1992, nº 7.
 Casa & Jardin, nº 225.
 Casa &Jardin, nº 226.
 Casa & Campo, nº 28.
 Casa & Campo, nº 36.
 Casa & Campo, nº 41.
 Casa & Campo, nº 45.
 Casa & Campo, nº 58.
 Rattapallax, New York. September 2001.
 Ilustración de portada para la novela “El almuerzo de los cuervos” de
Adriana Manzanares, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2003
 Ilustración de la entrada para el Museo de Arte de Columbia. 2003

By Rafael Cabrera, writer and painter


Ignacio Navarro, like all genuine artists, builds his syntax taking his experience as point of departure. Experience that, in this case, is that of the lonely sailor surviving a spiritual death and whose need for expression originates in the deep inquisition practised upon his soul by the different institutions: the Church, the State, the Capital, the jet-set... Just one allegory, always the same one, reproducing itself unceasingly, as a thousand-headed Hydra, in a stage where death and resurrection turn up in an auto-da-fé, in a programmed image of the Last Judgement, as in the Apocalypse by Beato de Liébana.


But beyond that sorrowful carnival--as in Ensor--there appears the mere need for expression, as an elixir which gives health, purity and renders the artist´s tortured soul to its original state. Maybe behind all that iconography--that deliberate and inevitable use of "those major symbols of the Spanish tragedy," that criticism of the Establishment, so sympathetic and merciless at the same time--there exists a profound need for transcendence, for a spiritualism always denied, time after time, by glances and silence. At the same time, it shows the horror that takes in the heart of the churches, the souls of the faithful stripped off the sacred, spirituality and beauty.


All uncovering, all description implies a commitment with what we hold to be true and real. For that reason, the implicit moral criticism in the figures that constitute Ignacio´s allegory is born of the need to build and create a space where the soul may transcend, free from the tyranny of those expressions that coerce and aggress it unremittingly. The sense of that uncovering has also to do with an inner purification. The pure and unrestricted human being, who is aware of the good that goes along being in control of his own destiny, rebels against the coercion that the institutions and the powers try to impose upon him by means of expressions, words and ideas. And he claims as of right, free expression, inspiration, the actual moment which is taking place. The artist, in this case, wants above all to live in the real world and for that reason exorcises the ghosts that attempt to avoid it by invading his conscience and affecting his sensibility. It is for that reason that he needs to reject them in an act of creation, exorcise them with vigorous lines and brush-strokes telling what words cannot suggest.


(Translated by Dr. Luis Costa, Lecturer in English and American Literature, University of Cordoba)

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

 IV, V, VI, IX Certámenes Juvenil de Arte Córdoba, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1967.
 1965 Sala Municipal de Arte, Córdoba.
 1966 Caja Provincial de Ahorros, Córdoba.
 1973 Colectiva de Pintura Circulo Juan XXIII, Córdoba.
 1976 Primer Salón de Pintores Cordobeses, V Feria Nacional del Libro.
Colegio de Arquitectos de Córdoba.
 1983 Premio Gaudí de Acuarela. Caja de Ahorros Provincial, Córdoba.
 1985 Rodeo Beach (acuarelas), Puerto Banús, Marbellla.
 1994 Club Financiero Antares (pintura, dibujo y cerámica), Sevilla.
 1995 Galeria Kreisler, Miami USA.
 1996 III Premio Internacional de Pintura, Marbella.
 1997 I Bienal de Artes Plásticas Excma. Diputación de Córdoba.
 1998 Galería Arte 21, Córdoba.
 1999 Galería Arte 21, Córdoba.
 2001 International Art Fair, Artenim. Nimes, France.
 2002 The Ninth Life Art Gallery. St Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA.
 2002 Honorific Mention, Perspectiva 2003. Latin American Art Museum, Miami, USA.
 2003 “Visiones”. Galeria Crisolart Art Gallerie, Barcelona,
 2003 IV Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Florencia.

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

 1972 Sacromonte (dibujo), Granada.
 1978 Galería Liceo (pintura y dibujo), Circulo de la Amistad, Córdoba.
 1979 Galería El Paso (dibujo), Marbella.
 1985 Galería Pérez de Guzmán (dibujos y acuarelas), Sevilla.
 1986 Galeria Estudio (dibujo y acuarela), Córdoba.
 1992 Pabellón de Gastronomía de la CEE en la Exposición Universal “Expo 92” (cerámica), Sevilla
 1993 Hotel Príncipe de Asturias (cerámica), Sevilla.
 2003 Retaurante Midas, Sotogrande, Cadiz.
 2004 Hotel Caleta, Gibraltar.

Part of his works can be founded at United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, USA and Spain in private collections.