Álvaro Barcala. Artwork

Astronomicon - Book

I have published SOME FEW SAMPLES of my 101 drawings book "Astronomicon" in the following blog:

http://astronomicon-book.blogspot.com/

Entrevista - Artículo en "Madriz"

Un artículo-entrevista sobre mi libro de dibujos "Astronomicón" en la revista "Madriz":

¿Cuál es el significado de estas imágenes?

Pienso en estos dibujos como palabras escritas que representan emociones y pensamientos que no podrían ser interpretados de la misma manera por medio de nuestro lenguaje ordinario. Es así que el conjunto de estas imágenes adquiere un significado propio y en cierta manera oculto y encriptado. Individualmente cada imagen no tiene un significado completo, es una vez que has emprendido la "lectura" a través del libro cuando empiezas a descifrar el lenguaje que utilizo y a entenderlo.

¿Cómo "accediste" a ellas? ¿Son visiones? ¿Inducidas o provocadas de qué manera?

Las visiones las tengo una vez que he terminado el dibujo. Con esto me refiero a que una vez acabado el dibujo es cuando veo significados o hago lecturas en él. Para crearlos tanteo mi subconsciente dibujando de manera automática, pero antes elijo un tema para enfocar mi mente. En el caso de "Astronomicon" elegí las constelaciones. Durante miles de años el ser humano ha utilizado las estrellas como materia sobre la que desinhibir sus preocupaciones y oscuridades. El cielo es un conjunto caótico de estrellas a las que damos un orden artificial agrupándolas por constelaciones que nos sugieren imágenes mitológicas, como cuando vemos formas en las nubes. Con este artificio conseguimos entender poco de lo que hay ahí arriba, pero mucho de lo que hay en nuestra psique. En Astronomicon hice lo mismo con mi mente. Me la imaginé como un universo caótico de estrellas que he ordenado en este libro como si de constelaciones se trataran. En un principio tanteaba sin pensar y al poco empezaron a surgir grafismos y patrones que luego conscientemente utilicé para crear una gramática estelar.

Puedes ver los dibujos de "Astronomicón en el siguiente link:

http://astronomicon-book.blogspot.com.es/

Heaven Complex

I have started a new musical project called "Heaven Complex".

These are the first tracks of my upcoming album "Astral Premonition".

I don't do music profesionally but as an outlet, here it is:

More songs in the following link:
http://heavencomplex.bandcamp.com/

Álvaro Barcala in Juxtapoz (online)

http://www.juxtapoz.com/Illustration/alvaro-barcala

"Terminal Interference in the Canals of the Vision" 50X70cm (19.7 X 27.6")

Interview for "Sleaze" magazine (Germany)

Please note that this interview was done years ago and that nowadays my thoughts and beliefs might be different.

-Interview by LeneVollhardt-

Click on the images to see them bigger:

You can read the interview in english in the following link:

"Canciones de un Marinero Ahogado"

I have just published a blog with SOME FEW SAMPLES of the poems and illustrations
of my book "Canciones de un Marinero Ahogado" ("A Drowned Sailor's Songs").

You can see those samples in this link:
http://cancionesdeunmarineroahogado.blogspot.com/

ALVARO BARCALA - LAMONO MAG

Please note that this interview was done many years ago and that nowadays my thoughts and beliefs might be different.

I made the cover of Lamono 2008 September Issue.

and inside there is an interview with me by Eva Villazala.

Click on the images to make them bigger:

TO READ THE WHOLE INTERVIEW (in spanish) click the following link:

"Eclipse" Cosmogony Panel

while in process:

Hermaphrodite King

Goddess Insect

Alvaro Barcala at LAM03 EXHIBITION/ MADRID/ MARCH 2009

Last 12 March the LAM03 EXHIBITION (Lamono Magazine) was celebrated at the gallery Fast Cool, Madrid, in which three works of Alvaro Barcala were included.

God Insect

"PSYCHE" 60X45cm (18"X24")

"The Alchemist Smith" 50X70cm

"Cosmic Child" 50x70

I took a quick photo of my last drawing "Cosmic Child" 55X70cm

"COSMIC TOYS" EXHIBITION: BERLIN 4th JULY

Álvaro Misterio - Cosmic Toys
From July 4 until July 27, 2009

Opening: July 4, 2009 at 6 p.m. - 10 p.m.

enblanco is pleased to announce the exhibition „Cosmic Toys“ by Álvaro Misterio.

In his series “Cosmic Toys" (Juguetes Cósmicos) Álvaro Misterio combines two of his ever-prevailing topics: childhood and the world of myth and cosmology.

The eight drawings of the series each show a child or girl enthralled in a play of sorts. Dolls, play bricks, plants and everyday objects found in every household – a pen, a knife, a mirror and lipstick - become part of a sequence of settings, which evoke classical religious rituals such as human sacrifice or spiritual invocation. Rituals, which stem from the time when we first chose to create gods as a means to understand the world which surrounds us.

Children have a way of their own to perceive the world and to make the world make sense to them, believes the artist. From their perspective, playing is not simply a way to imitate something or someone, in the way of creating a fake or a fake world, but a means to interpret and understand reality. A reality, which can be incomprehensible and illogical and forces the individual to look for explanations in his or her own imagination and not only in the often unsatisfying rules, laid out by someone else. Children as such still have to learn societies rules – one of the reasons the artist is so drawn to them.

But while a doll, which is taken apart, for the child can remain a doll – a plaything, a mechanism to investigate - to the onlooker it can become more than an object. We can’t help to associate plastic limbs, modeled on the human body, with precisely this body which is vulnerable to pain and death. So when these limbs get scattered, we find it disquieting.
The boundaries between the human body and its moulded copy seem to blurr even more, when suddenly a doll’s open skull shows a brain, half scattered on the floor, while the actual girl has no eyes but instead the hollow and dead sockets of a doll.

The uncanniness experienced while looking at these drawings though, is not related to any explicitely violent depiction. ‚Violence’ – says Barcala – is in people not in the object or an artwork’. The spectators fulfill the scene as they create their own story around each picture and thus any perceived violence may stem from their imagination alone. While the drawings themselves remain metaphores for the incomprehensible ways in which we try to make sense of an incomprehensible world.

His works have been shown in the last two years in galleries like Knot & Krüger (Berlin), Fastcool (Madrid) and Galerie 21 (Hamburg).

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Decks: DJ Yoann Armand Jacques Kaplan

"COSMIC TOYS" (Juguetes Cósmicos)

An in process serie of drawings for my project "Mythological Child".

The relationship between children and their toys, the antropomorphic game, is closely related with the magico-religious beliefs of ancient times.
Here there are some samples of this microcosmos:

Color Pencil on Paper. 45X45 cm Each.
From left to right: 1."Amulet" 2."Hainuwele" 3."Ouroboros" 4."Stillborn" 5."Visionary" 6."Sacrifice" 7."Mirror"