Interview with Carlos Aquilino
“My works emerge from emotion, in a spontaneous and intuitive way. My creation is always direct, I do not prepare sketches in advance. ”
Tell us about how you decided to become an artist and why?
This is something I don't know how to express in words - I have always felt the need to paint and draw. I feel it as an inescapable need. I grew up painting and drawing, and at the age of 16, I told my parents that I wanted to make a living as an artist. I worked in the graphic industry for a short time while I continued drawing and painting, and later I prepared my first exhibition and began to develop my life as an artist..
What influences you the most when you are in the process of creating new artwork?
The music I listen to influences me deeply. Music is essential for me - it is one more color, and I am happy painting while listening to the music I like. The city I live in and the density of my surroundings are also very important influences.
Which artists are you most inspired by?
I imagine that all the visual encounters I have had throughout my life have influenced me deeply. I used to visit the Prado Museum with my father when I was a child, and these experiences have remained in my spirit, influencing my way of perceiving the world and how I express it in my artworks.
I have learned from so many artists that I really don't know which ones to name. All of them have moved me throughout my life and have left their mark on me.
What was, or is an artwork you especially enjoyed creating and why?
I especially enjoyed painting my oil on canvas "The birth of my Venus"; it was my first large format work (200 x 280 cm). I painted it in a wonderful studio at the Spanish Academy in Rome, Italy, where I felt very free. From this artwork I began a new stage in my painting.
Do you have a dream project? What might that be?
Currently my dream project would be to get a big studio, with good light and, what is very important, without noises. To work quietly and capture in my work the beauty that I live intensely in my dreams.
“In my Nature Series, I explore natural forms, pinpointing plants and flowers and allowing them to swell to an unnatural size. Figures are also a presence in these scenes. They are tiny, caught in waves of grass, captured in wandering stems, or impossibly climbing and clinging to the giant flowers. They are figures faceless, diluted of color, creatures of the earth succumbing to the overwhelming power of its nature.”