Artist Daniel Alfaya lives and works in Medellin, Colombia. Here are some of his words:
“Textiles, Berber Tapestries from Morocco as well as Indigenous handbags in Colombia are a source of inspiration, but so are painters like Klee and Albers teachers of the Bauhaus. I could make an endless list of artists who at some point have influenced me … Matisse, Diebenkorn, Scully, Chillida...
“I work on paper, mixed technique, abstract and figurative, I am interested in composition, balance, I have no conscious aspirations to convey an idea, not even a feeling. I look for a decorative object and have learned from the makers and decorators.”
“I was born in a small city in North Africa, Ceuta (Spain) in 1974. Until I was 8 years old I lived in different countries, although the most vivid memories are of Fez (Morocco). I did my high school studies and a photography course in Madrid (Spain), one of the best cities to admire painting. At the age of 20, in 1994, I moved to Belgium and studied Fine Arts, 2 years at the Academie Royale de Beux Arts in Brussels. In 1997 I returned to Spain. In 1999 I returned to Morocco and in 2001 I traveled for the first time to Colombia where I settled for good in 2006 in Envigato, next to Medellín. In 2009, together with my wife Diana Cardona, we set up the environmental solutions company Kontrolgrun SAS which occupied most of my working time until 2019. In 2022, , with a daughter in college, and a teenage son, I began to focus on my Art.
“From my early days I have three memories: Alejandro Lamas, who was a professor of photography at a cultural center in Madrid that I went to in my teens, taught us that dividing each side of the photograph into three parts created four imaginary points to which we had to pay attention in the composition. What it was all about was playing.
“A few years later, at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, Franz Mabille, in the last year before his retirement, he explained to me why unconsciously I had signed on the upper left margin in a drawing, to compensate for all the space that was on the sheet and attract the look and balance the void.
“After leaving the Academy, I returned to Madrid. I attended a workshop by Venancio Blanco. He made 3 drawings of a skull in 20 seconds. "When choosing one of them over the others you start working, minimum 5 minutes every day", was his recommendation.”
These paintings are made with cut out pieces of brown paper, and a mix of oil stick, acrylic, dirt water, ink, and watercolor.
Daniel’s work has been exhibited widely in Europe and Colombia.