Pedro Paricio

Pedro Paricio's unique visual language blurs the boundaries between the figurative and the abstract. His vibrant designs are a signature motif, filling familiar silhouettes with prismatic colours and geometric patterns.

There is an inclusiveness to Paricio's artwork: by eradicating facial features and stripping away the subject's identity, his paintings are a representation of universal humanity. The artist invites us to view familiar images afresh and participate in the act of creation. The ambiguity of his compositions allows the viewer to project their own experience onto the artwork to derive personal meaning from it. 'What I want is that you finish completing the work, Paricio explains, 'It is like a kind of trio, me, painting and you.'

Paricio participates in a long tradition of adoption and reinvention in the history of painting. This has been a recurring theme throughout his career and was most thoroughly expanded upon in his solo exhibition Tradition (2022). Paricio continues this exploration in his most recent body of work, featured in Hockney / Paricio: Cycles of Renewal at Halcyon. 

Incorporating elements of Pop art and street art, he reimagines figures and gestures from the Western canon of art history. His inspiration ranges from the Old Masters including Vermeer, Velázquez and Artemisia Gentileschi to twentieth-century trailblazers like Hockney, Warhol and Picasso. Instantly recognisable silhouettes such as Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring or Grant Wood's American Gothic are transformed by Paricio's distinctive style.

Paricio draws inspiration from Picasso, another Spanish artist who constantly engaged with tradition, 'borrowing' iconic imagery and motifs. In his 2019 exhibition, Paricio Picasso, at Halcyon, Paricio continued his ongoing dialogue with artists of the past. The exhibition featured works Paricio created in response to Picasso, including a series of etchings inspired by his print series, the Vollard Suite.

This connection with the father of Cubism is enhanced by Paricio's ties to Picasso's birthplace, Andalusia. Paricio's mother is also from this region of southern Spain and he would spend summers there as child. The contemporary artist has expressed a deep affinity for Picasso, evident not only in their approach to appropriation and reinvention of art historical references, but also in their shared personal history and culture.

Paricio’s newest body of work reinterprets some of David Hockney’s most iconic subjects such as his pools and landscape paintings.  Paricio discovered Hockney through Picasso, explaining, ‘you can only understand Hockney once you have understood Picasso, and you can only understand Picasso once you have understood the entire history of art.’

Seeing Hockney as 'the last living painter in the tradition of the great masters of painting’, the British artist has profoundly influenced Paricio’s artistic vision. In teaching the artist how to see in new ways, Hockney’s gaze becomes part of Paricio’s, just as Cézanne’s became part of Picasso’s, and Picasso’s of Hockney’s, in a chain of influence that stretches back throughout the history of art.

Throughout his oeuvre, the artist has cultivated an immediately recognisable persona through his black jacket, hat and tie. In his paintings, Paricio often inserts himself into the composition, inviting us to reflect on the idea of self-representation in the history of art (he describes the work of Picasso as '100% autobiography').

Paricio's constructed alter-ego references the surrealist painter René Magritte, whose works are populated by men in bowler hats. He is also inspired by the German artist Joseph Beuys, another figure who cultivated a personal mythology and who was an important influence on Paricio as a young artist.

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