Ignacio Fortún Garcés del Garro

Zaragoza 1959

Ignacio Fortún –Artist from Zaragoza with an artistic career of more than 30 years, from the start linked to figurative art. Landscapes of light and metal.

The first steps of this self-taught artist are related to figuration, through works of apparent ingenuousness and – beneath the surface – of criticism and irony. With these works he has his first exhibition in Madrid in 1986 at the Ovido gallery, an important gallery in the artistic movement “la Movida Madrileña”.

Around 1988 with “Limit Landscape” the artist leaves all anecdotic reference behind and throws himself into the contemplated landscape, eager to invoke an emotional reality beyond realism. Under this name the paintings were exhibited in the Madrid gallery Sen. This was the start of a long-term professional relation with the gallery.

Having received a grant from the Fundacion Banesto In 1992 grants the artist deepens his treatment of landscapes reducing the chromatic range, obtaining devastated, burned landscapes. He exhibits in Arco and in the Madrid gallery Sen under the title Ceniza Húmeda (Humid Ash). The burned landscape leads him to the desert. He mixes images of the Monegros and Almería with the deserts of Africa. Light and empty space of two landscapes, at the same time nearby and distant. He exhibits in the Barcelona Senda gallery in 1994. 

As a result of this work the Spanish Embassy in Indonesia proposes him for a grant in 1996. For three months he paints the rice fields and the woods of Bali.

In 1997, Fortún publishes together with the Sen Gallery the author’s edition “El verano en una esquina” (“the summer at a corner”). With this book he discovers both the area where he paints and himself in a process of transformation leading him decisively to the urban landscape and to the investigation into the use of zinc as a pictorial instrument: material and reflected light turn into crucial decisive elements of expression in his work. Barrio y Jardin del obrero (Area and The worker’s garden ( 2000- 2006).

The frequent bus trips to Madrid, the obligatory stops at Esteras de Medinaceli and the cheap guesthouses turn into suggestive scenes for the reappearance of the human figure in his new work. Transito (Transition). He exhibits parts of this work in Zaragoza at the Palacio de la Aljafería (Miradas sobre la ciudad (Views of the city), 2006). A larger exhibition is organised in the gallery Pepe Reballo (2007). 

As a result of experiments with light, Fortún realized various art installations and art productions outside the traditional exhibition places. Two short movies of the film director Domingo Moreno result from this reinterpretation of his work: Jardin del obrero. Pintar con la luz (Paint with the light) (2003) and Vislumbre (Appearance) (2006).

In the summer of 2008 he presents the edition of three serigraphs on aluminium in the gallery A del Arte, and he participates with three other painters in “Retratas de Ciudad” (City portraits), Sala Luzán, Zaragoza.

The exhibition “El cuadro mudable” (the movable artwork ) at the Centro Cultural Ibercaja (Huesca, 2010), allows one to discover his work once again in the context of a scenographical treatment of the light in the exhibition space.

With the series Rural Necesario (necessity of rural life) , Gallery A del Arte, Zaragoza (2011), the artist focuses on the rural environment in a process of reconciliation with the common and the unnoticed   landscape.