Biography
PEÑALTA
He was born in Mexico City on October 17, 1963.
Married, since childhood, to his activity as an artist over time, he has had an intimate relationship with it.
Circumstances in his life prevented him from studying anything related to the art of painting. He graduated from the Escuela Libre de Derecho, with a major from the Universidad Panamericana. Since then, this distance from painting studies generated a deep desire to learn, practice and study that field of the arts, and he has done it passionately on his own initia- tive. Hence, there is no line separating his art studies from his professional development as an artist. The one and the other are mingled and blend together in the same way as the veins and tones in a plaque of stone. Simultaneously, he has always resorted to the study and reading of art books.
Except for his attendance to the workshop of the maestro Gilberto Aceves Navarro, his formal art studies are as basic as those undergone by the people who painted in the caverns of Altamira, Lascaux or Mulegé.
His self-taught condition may make him as elemental as a piece of stone. Because of this, he celebrates, and at the same time deeply regrets that his art studies have taken place outside
the institutions of learning. This may be the vein that crosses his development as an artist, and on which he has had to work arduously.
He committed himself to an intense search, in such a way that he started to enjoy it almost as much as you can enjoy your own discovery. In this case, the creative process per se is captivating to him. This may be the reason why he has spent so much time confined within the hidden excavations of his own search.
A few years ago, when that patient search had almost be- come a form of life, he suddenly started to discover with his paint brushes, with the same care an archaeologist would have, the extremely ancient faces and beings who live in the stones. From that moment on he has focused on working on this discovery. His artistic career has been as intense as it has been hidden. A solitary, slow, paused journey, totally committed to a search of many years and in the most absolute freedom. Keeping away, until now, from exhibitions, and convinced that you must only arrive at them after making an important discovery.
In this very long search PEÑALTA has finally achieved this dis- covery. A hitherto unknown series that he now makes public.
MANIFIESTO
Art is a feeling that, through the innovative talent of its creator, manages to become materialized into something that can be perceived through any of the senses. It constantly evolved, thus becoming the most effec- tive and abiding language.
In their early stages human beings used this language painting on the rock of the caverns they inhabited. In this way we have continued ceaselessly communicating through art, and we will do it foras long as we exist. In these sophisticated times of virtual worlds and swift techno- logical progress, we are swept by an impulse to return to what is most elemental. To verify the real world still exists.
For this reason, in our times I discover stone is a potent instrument through which to express myself, in the same way as humans did at the beginning. It is soothing and reaffirming to work on it slowly, patiently and thoroughly. It’s the best way to remember what we are.
This is the beginning of a painstaking dialogue with the stone to un- ravel what it wishes to tell us. Slowly and carefully we will, by degress, discover the petrified voices that were trapped for so long. Thanks to this dialogue, living faces shall emerge instilled with vigor, the same faces Anchises mentioned to Aeneas in the subterranean world.
A question then emerges: is it truly a dialogue? Or, maybe, it is a monologue in which the stone acts as a suggestive confidante, and on which each person shall invoke his or her own histories, desires, fears and yearnings.
A feeling clamoring to come out emerges, it wants to free itself, the paint brushes are shaking. However, the wonderful and ceaseless, bodi- less world of ideas, feelings and concepts is now subordinate to the con- ditions imposed by the most elemental of all objects: the stone, which previously cut and duly prepared, shows us its entrails and its history.
We all wish our existence were a pristine canvas in which our personal ideals and aspirations could be expressed. However, life is not like that. The life of a person is precisely like a cold marble plaque, plethoric with intricate lines and color-schemes that intersect and blend, continue and oppose each other. It is precisely there, where each person must begin to design his or her own existence.
There may be regrets, self-pity or reproach because of the destruction of projects and plans resulting from the impertinent and unsteady veining that phases out and interrupts; or rather, first, resignation, and then, ac- ceptance and after that the hard job of building with and over them, the most desired projects. Because, ultimately, that’s what life is.
This bodiless feeling of pareidolia must now find its way out through the thicket of intricate veining that conditions and limits. Afterwards, the brush will sink into the oil pigments and then, with the same thorough- ness and care shown by an archaeologist, it will ceaselessly move upon the stony cuts until it has discovered the beings that have inhabited there for such a long time.
The silica stones have now become magic carpets that have trav- eled in time, starting millions of years ago; and in a nanosecond of that stone’s life, the brushes will find these beings, liberating them, and then the stone will continue its voyage with them through the billions of years it is yet to live.
To caress the stone sliding the brushes over its petrified veins, search- ing for what it wishes to tell us, or maybe, rather, what we wish to say in this time of ours. This is the best way to impregnate it with a Promethean human scent, to thus verify that the real world does exist.
We shall see other things as time passes, but the immortal stone will always be there, waiting for stories that must be told.