Ildefonso Aguilar

Minimal Landscapes – Painting and Photography

Ildefonso Aguilar, born in 1945, has lived in Lanzarote since 1946. He expresses his connection with the island‘s landscape in his paintings, photographs, musical compositions and architectural artworks. He is also an important representative of the ecology movement on the island and is seen as a spiritual successor of Cesar Manrique.

From 1963 to 1968, he studied art in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. After that he taught painting and drawing for six years in Arrecife. Since his main activity of oil painting on canvas didn‘t satisfy him personally, he devoted himself increasingly to a lifelong passion, Photography.

He developed a new technique in which he worked on the photographs with sand, first applying glue to the surfaces, then designing them with the sand grains. From an initial idea, he composes landscapes with different sand – fine white grains from the beach Caletón Blanco and coarser dark from Playa Quemada. The surfaces are made of many thin layers and only selected areas exhibit a coarser structure. With a final polish, he gives an even and flawless completion.

He actually applied this technique in painting on wood, for example on such that is traditionally used for ship building. Also these sand pictures on wood are distinguished by a particularly harmonious surface.

The bareness of the island, the primitiveness, the purity – these are the main sources of Ildefonso Aguilar‘s inspiration. On a broken piano he sets his observations, his impressions, his feelings into music. While he sits at this instrument, you can actually see how he listens to nature, picks up short sequences and puts them into music.

“In my pictures it is about expressing something fundamental and this I can achieve with various approaches: by going macroscopically close to the elements or by seeing them at an infinite zoom at the horizon or by a synthesis of both points of view. It is clear that my pictures often have a certain tendency to become abstract.“

Through his travels to Iceland the multimedia artist is now also inspired by the nature of the largest Volcanic island on earth, which has much in common with his home. He finds inspiration in the specific nature of the islands of Lanzarote and Iceland.

In an interview he said: “I have worked a lot with the topic of volcanism of Lanzarote and its natural park of Timanfaya. In this volcanic world, what fascinates me most are the areas of the volcanic ash and its dunes.

It is true that Iceland has the same aesthetic concept as Lanzarote – a minimalism that is charged with a strong simplicity and a certain austerity. Since Iceland has a much larger area, feelings of solitude and purity are much stronger. I would say that I feel an obsession for this country and for the wonderful light of the Arctic.“
In his photographic work Ildefonso Aguilar shows the „Gestures of Landscape“, which the artist can read and understand by subtle and patient observation. He worked on the photographs with sand and makes inner images of atmospheric landscapes visible. In recent decades he has developed further technically through the possibilities of digital photography and new printing methods.

The photos are Giclee Prints, which are characterized by high resolution, sharp contrasts, tiny color nuances and extreme characterized detail. Today Ildefonso Aguilar is one of the few artists who applies sand art on paintings and photographs. Out of many layers of fine sand, he creates a landscape or rather a mood or feeling.