Miguel Angel Campano

MIGUEL ÁNGEL CAMPANO (Madrid, 1948 - 2018).
"Nicked cup", 1992.
Oil on canvas.
Signed, dated and titled on the back.
Measurements: 46 x 55 cm.

Miguel Ángel Campano's painting of a cup, with its expressive black stroke on a gray background and synthetic silhouettes in the background, is a characteristic example of his plastic language, in which gestuality, formal synthesis and exploration of the pictorial motif are essential. Campano, linked to postmodern abstraction and the New Spanish Figuration, approached painting with an experimental attitude and a strong gestural component. His energetic and spontaneous black line is reminiscent of oriental calligraphy and surrealist automatism, while the choice of an everyday object such as the cup links him to his interest in simple themes elevated to a deeper pictorial dimension. Within his work, this painting is part of his exploration of the essential: reducing visual elements to their fundamental structures, while maintaining the physical and expressive character of the pictorial gesture. His line is reminiscent of the tradition of matter painting and the spontaneity of artists such as Franz Kline or Cy Twombly, but with his own poetics in which everyday objects acquire an almost totemic presence.

Miguel Ángel Campano is one of the referents of the so-called renovation of Spanish painting, which took place in the eighties and in which Ferrán García Sevilla, José Manuel Broto, José María Sicilia and Miquel Barceló also participated. In the 70's he moved to Paris thanks to a scholarship; the planned year became a stay of more than ten, there he lived and developed his brilliant pictorial career. Then he went to live in Mallorca. In 1980 he was part of the exhibition Madrid DF, in the Municipal Museum of Madrid, along with several artists among whom were the same ones who today -except García Sevilla- accompany him in the Palacio de Velázquez. Five years later he was selected, together with other fellow artists of his generation, then all young painters, such as Miquel Barceló, who was already an outstanding figure, and José María Sicilia, for a group exhibition in New York. In 1996 he was awarded the National Prize for Plastic Arts. He had just suffered a serious stroke and underwent surgery in Madrid. This forced him to spend several months without painting. Then he painted "only in black", a very symbolic color according to his own words. Three years later, the Reina Sofia Museum organized in this same Palacio de Velazquez an exhibition dedicated to his recent work then, that of the 90s. His works are exhibited in the most important museums, such as the British Museum in London, the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofía in Madrid.