BIO
Education:
Bachelor of Fine Arts // Complutense University of Madrid
Personal exhibitions :
2020 Bea Villamarín Gallery, Gijón. "Patria"
Pigment Gallery, Barcelona. "Package"
2019 Ansorena Gallery, Madrid. "Mitología de interior"
2018 Bea Villamarín Gallery, Gijón. "Hazañas Bélicas"
2016 Bea Villamarín Gallery, Gijón. "Mi Familia y otros animales"
2015 Perve Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal
Bea Villamarín Gallery. Gijón. "Momento de Presentaciones"
2012 Van Dyck Art Room, Gijón. "Vacíos Llenos"
Art Center, Museum of Almería, Almería. "Zoo Lógico"
2009 Alfama Gallery, Madrid
Van Dyck Art Room, Gijón. "Zoo lógico"
2008 Clave Gallery, Córdoba
Orfila Gallery, Madrid. "Anima L"
2007 Campos Gallery, Zaragoza. "Bestiario"
2006 Art room, VanDyck, Gijón. "Sentimientos"
2004 Centre Asturia node Oviedo. "Antropología Animal"
Club de Camp de Torrelodones. "Ataduras"
2002 Casa de Cultura del Ayuntamiento de Torrelodones, "Antropología Animal"
2000 Torredel Reloj, Noreña (Asturias)
Collective exhibitions :
2021 A child's soul, Galerie Géraldine Banier, Paris, France
2020 For a better world, Géraldine Banier Gallery, Paris, France
Ansorena Gallery, Madrid
Fermín Echauri, Pamplona.
2019 Bea Villamarín, Gijón
Two Art Gallery, Murcia
2018 Fermín Echauri, Pamplona
Two Art Gallery, Murcia P-Art Ibiza, Ibiza
100Kubik, Cologne, Germany
2017 Bea Villamarín, Gijón
Gallery Ansorena, Madrid
2016 Conexões Afro-Ibero-Americanas. Perve Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal
Caminos que se cruzan al sur, Casa Ibañez Museum, Almería
Art Center Museum of Almería
Gallery Ansorena, Madrid
Realismo en España 50 años, Sala Baluarte, Madrid
2015 Bea Villamarín, Gijón
100Kubik, Colonia, Germany
Gallery Ansorena, Madrid
2014 Van Dyck Art Room, Gijón
Anmoder, Madrid
2013 Van Dyck Art Room, Gijón.
Santiago Echeberría Gallery, Madrid
Anmoder, Madrid
2012 Gallery Karton, "Figuraciones", Huércal-Overa,
Almería Art room Van Dyck, Gijón Anmoder, Madrid
Gallery Alfama, "Pequeño formato", Madrid
Awards and distinctions :
2021 Finalist of the XXXV BMW Painting Prize
2018 Medal of Honor XXXIII BMW Painting Prize
2017 XX Premio Nacional de Pintura de Villaviciosa
XXXII BMW Painting Prize (Selection)
2014 XXIX BMW Painting Prize (Selection)
2013 XVIII BMW Painting Prize (Selection)
2011 Honor mention, IberCaja Prize
2012 XXVII Painting Award BMW (Selection)
2010 Medal of Honor XXV BMW Painting prize.
V Figurative Painting Competition, Foundation of Arts and Artists. (Pre-selection)
2009 X Contemporary Painting Competition of Torrelodones
(Prize and acquisition Casino Gran Madrid).
XXIV BMW Painting Prize, (Selection)
IV Figurative Painting Competition, Foundation of Arts and Artists. (Selection)
2006 Saexma Prize. II Certamen de Pintura de Pequeño Formato, (Selection)
2004 European Painting Competition "Antonio López 2004". (Selection)
2002 III Contemporary Painting Competition of Torrelodones (Acquisition Prize Casino Gran Madrid)
2001 Young Prize of Plastic Arts, Complutense University of Madrid
II Contemporary Painting Competition of Torrelodones. (Selection)
2000 Plastic Arts Prize of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Complutense University of Madrid (Acquisition)
Prize for Painting Valparaíso Foundation (Honorary Mention)
Carlos Tárdez is a multidisciplinary artist who could be framed in figurative art but with the added bonus that his paintings hide a deep symbolic layer behind an appearance of everyday life. As Tárdez himself explains, «My work is born out of my experiences. I try to always keep in mind the banality of what I do, because only from unpretentious sincerity does the idea arise. Every day new elements appear and reappear. That’s why I don’t set myself any objectives. I paint out of an inner need. It is from my own work that new questions arise, new projects».
Both in painting and sculpture, he has achieved a high level of quality that has earned him, among many other awards, the BMW Medal of Honor in 2010 and 2018.
Both in his paintings and his in sculptures there are mythological connotations, double meanings and great irony in the reinterpretations of everyday scenes and objects.
This fact is particularly evident in his sculpture (in this case, in addition to the polychrome resins, there are also pieces made of bronze), where he uses a preconceived idea or an object associated with a meaning and turns it upside down.
On the canvas he tries to express the idea in the most direct way possible, his pictorial tech- nique and the realism employed are careful, generating simple and emphatic compositions in which emptiness takes on a meaning and, in many cases, carries the conceptual weight in a treatment of space that drinks directly from abstract painting.
Color also has a direct relationship with the distribution of space, atmosphere and depth. The psychological influence and symbolic value of color are given great importance. It is also com- mon to see horizontal or vertical bands of matt black appearing in his paintings that delimit the space.
It is a symbolic figuration, with a series of resources that have enriched its own iconography. The title of each of the works suggests and reinforces the idea on many occasions, always leaving open the subjective interpretation of the viewer.
Sometimes, animals become the protagonists of his paintings, he uses them to represent feelings or vital moments. The choice of the animal is related to the preconceived idea we have of that animal to describe everyday situations. In short, he looks for an analogy in the traits of his animality that serves to express human feelings and situations.
Each animal evokes in the artist a series of sensations. The bird as a symbol of freedom, fragility, the retained movement, but also, and especially the sparrow, as a social element, of city and country, which interacts and is one and many as part of the mass. The monkey as the human animal. Last step towards the human being. It is cousin by primate and it is cousin by family. Special importance is given to the postures, the reflective look and the hands.