Portrait of JMCS in front of the mirror

Oil on panel; 110 x 100 cm, 43 ¼ x 39 ¼ in

 

Long summer

Charcoal on paper and panel; 60 x 165 cm, 23 ½ x 65 in

 

Portrait of JMCS in front of the mirror

Oil on panel; 110 x 100 cm, 43 ¼ x 39 ¼ in

 

Long summer

Charcoal on paper and panel; 60 x 165 cm, 23 ½ x 65 in

My painting

My painting reflects the world around me, although it relates to a universe that is intimate, in which the reality is re-created. I face my artistic practice from my daily experience with the objects that relate to me. I am particularly interested in the architecture of the different elements involved in my personal world. I conceive the spaces trying to find my own narrative, which seeks to transcend their material reality. I want to explore concepts such as fragility, time, and the inevitability of the fact that we shall disappear. I make use of objects that are visually poetic to me, especially those which I can transform by the dramatizing action of light in the space.

I firmly believe in the assertion that states that form and concept are inseparable. This principle governs my practice. When I work I always start with a previous idea that I find inspiring, sometimes just an intuition, which is transformed throughout the materialization process that goes from the abstract (the idea) to the concrete (the work). The execution is the embodiment of the idea and my method is Painting. I paint and draw, but my drawings can also be considered as paintings in black and white; I also make engravings. I use all the techniques in which I can express myself manually. When I use a specific painting technique, either oil, mixed media, watercolor, charcoal or etching, I experiment in the search of what I consider as its essence, that quality that is nontransferable and justifies its existence.

I understand my work as a coherent whole framed in the discourse of modernity. Both my approach to the subject represented, and my thoughts on the phenomenon of representation itself are contemporary and fully aware of the critical view of the historical tradition that comes from the avant-garde. In my opinion, the old rivalry of the figurative versus abstract languages has been exceeded by new challenges, which have more to do with the value of Art as an object and the artist’s role in the making of the work. These are the issues I want to reflect on.

«I conceive the spaces trying to find my own narrative, which seeks to transcend their material reality.»

[…] if we had put a limit to what Alvaro Toledo’s work shows us, it would be the way he has of narrating what happens to us when we are not there. By which I mean that he distances us from the scene to better capture our essence. […] The latter makes Alvaro Toledo a philosopher and a poet, just sufficient for him to be what he is: a great painter.

Prof. Dr. Francisco Calvo Serraller

«What is Real»

[…] In his charcoals on panel he leaves the impression of a display that makes the environment protagonist rather than the objects. […] Álvaro Toledo […] is among the most outstanding names of the latest generation of Spanish realism.

Tomás Paredes

«Toledo, sparing and brilliant»La Vanguardia

[…] a realism very grounded in the visibility of geometry […] Something that is perfectly visible in the charcoals -superb, dense and dark- on which traces of liquids and other handling remain on its surface, but also gives the oils that characteristic roughness of the direct painting, stripped, without fanfare as those of Sánchez Cotán, Morandi and other painters of the finite.

Javier Rubio Nomblot

«The painting’s skin»ABC Cultural

[…] it is about images constructed to reveal the order, the architecture that is established between objects and space, or better yet between objects, space and gaze: a triangular argument that relates them to create a narrative that transcends the material reality. […] Alvaro Toledo’s gaze perceives the essence of an encounter, of objects in a place and with a certain light.

Prof. Dr. María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco

«Álvaro Toledo: to look»

Works

«I understand commissions as milestones which confront us with challenges which open unexplored new paths.»

Commission a work

A selection of works. Álvaro Toledo is represented in Spain by Galería Leandro Navarro.

Contact gallery for available works

From the interior towards the landscape

AGM’s house

Light and shade

Prints

Portraits

Sculpture

Private world