• About 1

Loreto Blanco Salgueiro

the vision further than the ordinary

The author

I was a day dreamer child with a great capacity for dreaming up my own worlds. Maybe because I did not quite like what I could find in the outside world, I learned to look inward and to live connected to a sensibility that I felt quite natural to have. This childish escape from such a hostile world —which was difficult to comprehend and complicated to live in— led me to connect with nature, which I felt was always available, open, loving, welcoming, entertaining and lucid.

My childhood home, close to the sea and the beach, was surrounded by fields, vineyards and stones, so I could constantly experiment with a great variety of colours, smells, tastes, insects and textures.

My tendency to see and feel the magic and mystery of all things that surround me, has been with me ever since I can remember, as if I knew that there is a lot more hidden beyond the things that can be seen. This is how the inner view —connected to the feeling and perceiving, rather than to the mere visual organ— was my loyal travel companion from my early childhood until now. I remember that I loved picking up stones which I carefully selected. After observing them, I painted them according to what they suggested to me. Painting became the creative means that allowed me to express those inner worlds that were starting to grow inside me. Creating images connected to this inner sensibility was something that I started doing since 1982, when I started my studies of Fine Arts and it has continued up until today.

Nature and the sublime

Nature was the source of inspiration to create a series of images from a selection of Japanese haikus that I presented in my doctoral thesis. This brief poetry condenses in three apparently plain and simple verses the intensity of a moment, of a perceived instant. It reflects with words the intensity that hides behind a look that is not focused in the obvious and superfluous. A look that goes beyond the apparent and can witness, feel and perceive.

I am motivated by the sublime insight that goes beyond everyday life, which guides me also into something else. Into a space of knowledge where presence awareness is not possible without letting ourselves being surprised by our own amazement, offering us the gift of a new world that opens before our eyes, deepens into our hearts through our whole being. Even to our restrictive and devouring mind, always in control, pretending to know what we are doing. Sometimes, there is just no answer because we do not know what is being done, we only know for certain that it has to be done.

Curriculum

Permanent Professor at the Department of Painting (Faculty of Fine Arts), Vigo University, since 1993.

  • Individual exhibitions

    1994 
    • Cultural Centre of Vigo. 
    1986
    • Cultural Centre of Vitoria.
    1988
    • Kaska & Windsor Art Gallery. Bilbao.
    • Culture Hall of Sestao: “Metáforas sobre la casa y el Mar” (House and Sea metaphors). (*)
    1989
    • Culture Hall of Caja de Ahorros Municipal de Bilbao. (*)
    1991
    • Bacelos Art Gallery. Vigo Vanguardia Gallery: “Pinemas”. Bilbao. (*)
    1994
    • Bacelos Art Gallery: “Acechos” (Threats). Vigo. (*)
    1998
    • Bacelos Art Gallery: “Gente Menuda” (Little People). Vigo. (*)
    2000
    • La Fábrica Museum: “Cosmos” (Painting Exhibition).Abarca de Campos, Palencia.
    • La Fábrica Museum: Creating a permanent sculpture at the outside gardens.
    • Bacelos Art Gallery: “Luces" (Lights). Vigo.
    2005
    • Bacelos Art Gallery: “Peticionarias” (Petitioners). Vigo.
    • Windsor Art Gallery: “Peticionarias” (Petitioners). Bilbao.
    2010
    • "Lo pesado es la raíz de lo leve" (The heavy is the root of the light. Art Next Gallery. Vigo.
    2013
    • "Natural Mente" (Natural Mind). O Manancial Centre, Cangas del Morrazo- Pontevedra.
    • "Seres de la Naturaleza" (Beings of Nature). Almeida Health Resort (Zamora).

    (*) catalogue