ARTIUM Álava has organised a series of chamber exhibitions in which art pieces belonging to Artium´s collection are placed in their own context. In this occasion, two art works by Vicente Ameztoy- an oil painting entitled La Familia (The Family) and an ink drawing, both from 1975- are the subject of this exhibition.

In order to contextualise the above mentioned works, and to be able to appreciate Ameztoy artistic activity and trajectory along those years, sixteen other art pieces created during the 70s have been gathered to be displayed. Most of these paintings belonging to, either public or private collections, have hardly been exhibited, thus, adding a greater interest to the exhibition.

It could be said that Vicente Ameztoy (San Sebastian, 1946-2001) was born with a brush in his hands, as his first art creation was at a very young age. At the age of five, Ameztoy did his first painting and at the age of fourteen, he presented his first exhibition. Although he attended painting classes in order to be accepted in San Fernando Fine Arts School, in Madrid, -where he did not stay long, his artistic knowledge was mainly self taught. Besides painting, he also experienced the scenographic and designing activity.

He is considered to be the most outstanding exponent of Basque surrealism. His work is full of poetic ambiguity and original imagination, and governed by precise and defined strokes. Landscapes and Basque people are very important elements that undergo oneiric metamorphoses in which humans and nature, reality and fantasy are blended and jumbled together. Two artists have had an evident surrealist influence in Ameztoy´s work, the Belgian René Magritte, and the Italian artist from the 16th century, Archimboldo.

This exhibition presents the work done between 1970 and 1978, artistic period in which Ameztoy grants protagonism to nature and to his own family. In pieces such as La Familia, figures are outlined, emptied and filed with clouds, effect which reminds us to Magritte´s work. In the triptych from 1977, five figures suffer a metamorphose when they are covered by vegetables, grass, twigs and other natural elements, thus turning into vegetable bodies. Although such natural elements are heavily dressing some of the drawn bodies, this green disguise does not hinders the viewer from uncovering the human nature in them. Examples of it are his self-portraits and the portraits of Virginia, his wife.

Unreal characters and explicit Basque natural landscapes where silence rules and time seams to be frozen, help create a disturbing and timeless enchanting atmosphere full of suggesting beauty. Such elements are very characteristic in Ameztoy´s work.

Acknowledgements to Virginia Montenegro and Virginia Ameztoy, as well as to all private and public collectors that have collaborated in this exhibition.