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 appropriation 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 at Halcyon Gallery (2022). Paricio continues this exploration in his most recent exhibition Nine Portraits at Mapfre Foundation (until 4 January 2024).

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 Gallery, 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has expressed a deep affinity for Picasso, evident not only in their approach to appropriation and reinvention of art historical references, but also their shared personal history and culture.

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.

Paricio returns home to the Canary Islands for his latest exhibition, Nine Portraits, which is currently showing at the Mapfre Foundation in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. In this series of portraits, Paricio transforms expressive moments from art history into lively contemporary designs.

Through portraiture, Paricio explores the ways in which an artwork can become transcendental, uninfluenced by the fashions and trends of the present. This dialogue with his predecessors is rooted in a deep reverence for tradition and Paricio’s belief that, ‘If you don’t know where you come from, how can you know where you are going?’

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