Artist Profile
Héctor Ramiro Monsalve is a Colombian artist that has shown his art not only in several Colombian cities, but also in the USA and India. In 2015 he had an exhibition at the Iris Photography Studio in Delhi.
The artist is known for his excellent abstract pictorial expression with the use of sgrafitto emphasizing on consciously executed white areas without using white pigment. Only around these areas show shades/tones, making his work attractively colorful and diversified.
He started as a self-taught painter; then, he attended the workshop of a renowned Manizaleño painter, Oscar Naranjo, for 15 years. As well as a painter, he has been a well-known university professor in the areas of cartography and ecology for 32 years. He has also taught Yoga and conducted self-realization and personal development seminars for many years, which has gained him a reputation in the region.
At Universidad de Caldas, Monsalve was not only a professor; he also directed the program of Social sciences, he was the dean of the Faculty of Education, and directed the Botanical Garden of the university. His workshops on ecological and environmental issues have earned him national and international recognition.
As an artist he has participated of individual and collective exhibits, as well as in the well-known art fairs in Manizales, in which several pictorial artists gather to offer their work at low cost, in an attempt to integrate society to the art world. In these fairs, the happenings were one of the main activities.
Nowadays, Monsalve develops his pictorial activity in his own studio in Medellín, Colombia, and has exhibitions not only in this city but also in other Colombian cities and I India. His most recurrent techniques are oil painting and lithographic ink. The Latin-American environment and culture, and Indian spirituality blend in his art, to produce a work full of mystery, light and shadow.
Upcoming Exhibition
When the human being decides to bare his self, thoughts and habits, he also shades his tastes, likes and dislikes. When his state of self grows more and more quiet, he gradually loses his mental state and his spiritual dimension is more vivid; consequently, peace and serenity are more evident and tangible.
Abstract art and its pictorial representation entail not to observe objects; both, the painter and the observer of his art find spiritual connotations, understanding as spiritual all that which changes our inner-self, our consciousness of endless existence.
Reincarnation, as the philosophical foundation and reality of an endless existence, where birth and death are successive steps of a never-ending existence, influences the expression of abstract art.
Maybe the observer, looking at my art, tries to translate his external world and starts exemplifying and coding my art according to his reality; nonetheless, as his observation goes on, he finds an inner explanation for it.
Lights, product of the scratching and striking in the paint, are points of departure, rather than points of arrival, where colour helps to interiorize, and, maybe to induce states of peace and plenitude.
In my many trips and long stays in the Indian milieu, both the country and its landscapes, and the people and their lifestyle have influenced my art. Landscapes related to the countryside and Indian idiosyncrasy, and, most important, the Hindu philosophy, have left a deep imprint in my life as a yoga practitioner and on my pictorial art.
Formal Opening: 24th January 2017, 6PM
Exhibition: 25th January to 1st February 2017
11AM to 7PM Everday
(Except 26th January)
Venue: Art Gallery, IIC Annexe, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi
Web: www.idis.in/hector
Curated by: Meher Malhotra Kamath
Contact: meher@idis.in
