Manolo Gómez Romero was born in Morón de la Frontera, Spain, in 1967. He has lived in Barcelona since 1989 and started to work as an artist in 1992. He exhibits widely in Spain and generally throughout Europe.

As a child, Gómez was fascinated by the patterns of lime falling on the floor when his mother used to plaster the walls of their house. He lost himself in contemplating countless shapes of blots and splashes. These forms are still in the artist’s mind while working. Born into a Roma family with a long flamenco tradition, Gómez started painting under the influence of his wife Joana Artigas, whose father Joan Gardy Artigas and grandfather Llorenc Artigas were ceramists and collaborators with Pablo Picasso, Juan Miró, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall and Alberto Giacometti. In the Artigas workshop, Gómez first learned to work in ceramics, only later to devote himself to painting. After ten years of private work, he exhibited in 2001 for the first time.

With his gestural, musical and calligraphic style, Gomez has found a fitting artistic expression for flamenco, expanding this culture with a new facet of abstract art. A recipient of the Premio de la Cultura Gitana 2012, he successfully implements and elaborates the enigmatic spirit of flamenco, the duende. Beside painting, posters and ceramics, his work also include relief-like structures that are sometimes incorporated into his paintings. Thus the artist liberates flamenco from the seemingly always identical appearance and gives this unique and intense culture a convincing and clear form that brings flamenco to life in contemporary art.

Although Gómez’s works are usually formally abstract, they depict his attitude to life and the environment. Sometimes, says the self-taught artist, they show what it means to be Roma. They are an attempt to portray the ancient emotions of Spanish Roma culture in a contemporary manner through vibrations, abstract expression and dynamic colours – emotions such as the inexplicable state of duende between audience and artists in flamenco. Gómez’s works have been rightly compared to the quejío, the cry of a special song in cante flamenco [flamenco singing].

Selected Exhibitions

2001
Fundació Josep Llorens Artigas, Gallifa

2002
Collective Espai Marc, Barcelona
Galeria Sa Pleta Freda, Son Servera, Mallorca

2003
Galería Ignacio de Lassaletta, Barcelona
Decor-Art – Sala de Arte, Zaragoza

2004
Month of Roma Culture, Zafra

2005
La Carbonera espai d’art, Barcelona

2006
Ca Revolta, Valenzia

2007
Faim Art Madrid
Semana de la cultura gitana, University of Jaén

2008
La Carbonera espai d’art, Barcelona

2009
Galeria Sa Pleta Freda, Son Servera/Mallorca

2011
Espaí d’art Puntoaparte, Barcelona

2012
Premio de la Cultura Gitana, Fundación Instituto de Cultura Gitana, Madrid

2014
Intuition.Ursprung – Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin

2015
Guiño – Dikhas Dur and TAK foyer, Galería Ignacio de Lassaletta, Barcelona

2017
Manolo Gómez Romero: [katße’Batße] – Ceija Stojka und die Sammlung Kai Dikhas. Heute ist gestern – Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin

Source: the artist, Moritz Pankok in Manolo Gómez Romero: [kaʧe’βaʧe] press release, 2017: http://www.kaidikhas.com/de/artist/manolo_goemez_romero/press