Santa Coloma de Gramenet hosts during the coming weeks an exhibition that invites to look at art… and also to look at oneself. The association Els Coloristes has inaugurated its new biennial exhibition, dedicated this time to self-portraiture, a proposal that spans the four long decades of history of the entity through the gaze of its own artists.
The exhibition, titled The Self-portrait, brings together works from different stages of the association and reflects the passage of time both in the artists and in their ways of understanding painting. According to the president of the entity, Carmen Andújar, the exhibition brings together “unpublished portraits of those who are no longer here and of those who still remain”, with works from both the most veteran members as well as the most recent artists who have passed through the workshop on Sant Jeroni street.
Founded in 1981, the entity has been for decades a meeting point for people of all ages with an interest in painting. Children, young people, and adults have shared creative space over the years, and this generational diversity is also evident on the walls of Can Sisteré. The exhibition shows works with very different techniques and styles: from realistic portraits to more abstract proposals, with the presence of symbolism and even surrealistic touches.
The choice of theme is not casual. Self-portraiture is one of the most direct ways to express artistic identity, and for this reason the exhibition also wants to be a tribute to the members who have been part of Els Coloristes during these 45 years, both teachers and students. Among the exhibited works there are also self-portraits of the founding members of the entity, such as Antoni Boronat, Paco Molina, Jordi Estany or Ricard Rex, key figures in the creation and consolidation of this local artistic collective.
On the day of the exhibition's inauguration, the Deputy Mayor for Culture, Sara Martínez, stressed that the exhibition also opens a reflection on personal identity in a society marked by social networks and stereotypes. Given this context, the act of painting oneself becomes an exercise of inner gaze.
From the artistic point of view, the author Roser Vicente -responsible for the work that heads the exhibition program- recalls that the traditional self-portrait starts from a simple element: the mirror. “It is noticeable when it is a natural self-portrait because the face is more serious; you cannot be laughing for a long time because you get tired,” she explains.
This combination of experiences, styles, and generations turns the exhibition into a kind of journey through the history of Els Coloristes and through the way each artist has looked at themselves over the years. The exhibition can be visited until May 3 at the Centre d’Arts Contemporani Can Sisteré, offering an opportunity to discover how identity, time, and painting meet in a single gesture: that of representing oneself before the canvas.
