"Art is not a mirror to reflect reality but a hammer to shape it." Bertolt Brecht
The work of Rafa de Corral (Bilbao, 1967) has evolved from a landscape of organized structures towards architectural refinement, where linearity takes on its utmost significance.
The reasoned structures of his works, reminiscent of the works of Mies van der Rohe, the Bauhaus school, or the architectures of Le Corbusier, blend rationalism, figuration, and abstraction.
The formal, architectural, and pictorial refinement in Rafa de Corral's current work projects a synthesis that unites the geometric with pictorial illusionism. It achieves a perfect union between the dreamlike and the real, the intimate with the personal.
In his lush scenes of geometric architectures, color underscores his mastery. Hazy skies, contrasts between light and darkness, and the intensity of his colors guide us to the most intimate aspect of the artist.
It presents us with a play of sensations where the viewer's visual experience and Rafa de Corral's personal experience merge in his dramatic structures, where not only contemplation leads to the artist's innermost self.
An example of this is the titles of his works, which conceal stories and sensations, leaving the door open for the viewer to delve into the artist's inner world and emotional state.
His current work continues to be based on principles that have remained constant throughout his artistic career. Rafa de Corral diligently works on his pieces, conducting preliminary studies on them, analyzing every detail, and keeping architecture as his primary theme. The placement of scenes in a timeless space, the sense of vastness, and the careful control of forms are also part of these foundational elements that so characterize the artist.
Rafa de Corral is currently going through a phase of artistic maturity, where he combines the possible with the impossible, reality with fiction, and where emptiness is expressed at its highest level.