Interview with Guillermo Lorca
Fiesta de Yaksha (2017) by Guillermo Lorca
Oil on canvas 180x300cm
Words & interview by Sufiyeh Hadian-Clarke
Chilean artist Guillermo Lorca began his training at age 16 with painter Sergio Montero, who is known for his large-scale surrealist oil paintings. In 2019, pre-pandemic, Guillermo collaborated with renowned Swiss art auctioneer Simon de Pury and British luxury brand Asprey, where his works were exhibited in rooms above their flagship Bond Street store in London.
Lorca´s painting style is best described as surrealist chaos by mixing realist figures and oversized animals painted with jewel tones and pop colours. The outcome is reminiscent of Caravaggio and the old masters; chaotic scenes with ethereal facial expressions create an intense feeling of escapism to a different realm. I spoke to Lorca to find out more about his works.
Guillermo Lorca by Diego Fontecilla Correa
Image credits: @bydiegofc
Tell us a bit about your work - how did you come to be an artist?
Guillermo Lorca: I never stopped being an artist. I had the brushes and pencils since I was able to have memories. The rest was simply losing the fear of doing a career of this type.
Where do you find inspiration?
Guillermo Lorca: Almost everywhere, I am always attentive to an image that may fit into a painting, it is something that I do in an unconscious way and that never stops.
What do the animals, natural elements and children symbolise in your paintings?
Guillermo Lorca: They are symbols of internal drives that interact with each other. It is difficult for me to define what each of them means since they come from sensations that I have at some point in my life. They are linked to memories from my childhood.
Some of your work has a chaotic element while others feel soothing to look at, how do you want the viewer to feel when seeing your work?
Guillermo Lorca: I am interested that the interlocutor is appealed to by the characters, feels observed, does not pass them unnoticed. But what each person is going to feel with the paintings is a personal matter of each person, at that point my art doesn’t belong to me anymore.
Sade and the cat (2015-16) oil on canvas, 190 x 145 cm
Can you tell us more about the surrealist parts, like the pink monkeys and oversized cats, for example. How did you think up these ideas?
Guillermo Lorca: They usually come to me after certain mental exercises, sometimes for symbolic reasons, sometimes for technical reasons. For example, pink monkeys, what came to my mind spontaneously was the colour, not the animal. But after a while, I related it to an image I had taken in a zoo, and it seemed to me that they worked well together.
What do you love most about what you create?
Guillermo Lorca: The very act of playing with the imagination to create something that is really intense and exciting. Besides that, they fill me a lot personally.
The Landing (2019) oil on canvas 140 x 110 cm
Some of the original techniques of the great masters such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio are prevalent in your work. When did you learn you could create these particular skills?
Guillermo Lorca: Mostly seeing books. I remember I had a really good book many years ago, with a close-up of Velazquez, which was amazing. I also spent a season many years ago with the master Odd Nerdrum in Norway.
What would you say is the intention of your work?
Guillermo Lorca: It’s my diary from my unconscious, I want to leave a legacy that by seeing the paintings all together, people can talk about who or what I really was.
What's next for you?
Guillermo Lorca: For now, it’s a surprise, but I will be notifying the news on my social networks soon.