Fernando Alday
Santiago de Chile, 1959
Alday has lived and worked in Barcelona since 1990. Since 2005 he has also collaborated with the art department of UNESCO in Paris. He has made multiple solo exhibitions and participated in national and international group shows and won various awards. In his works he uses pages from old notebooks, old account books or discarded books. “Ancient paper and mediaeval ink are essential for my paintings. The process begins with the almost archaeological search for paper, colour and textures. I am passionate about paper and its use as a material to represent the passage of time and convey nature ever present and fleeting of the cycle of life. From a very young age I was known as the “seeker”. I was drawn to the spiritual side of life, its abstract qualities. My father, a dentist and antiquarian, had a collection of manuscripts, including works by the cursed poet Arthur Rimbaud, which had a profound and lasting influence on me. At the age of five I became interested in calligraphy. Fascinated by sepia ink, I started my little collection. I grew up surrounded by books and I liked to sit in front of the bookshelf sorting them by colour. While dusting them, I would spend hours absorbed in their texture and content. Art History is an influential source of inspiration in my work.”
