Pepe Barragán

Pepe Barragán was born in Seville in 1956. He began studying Law at the University of Seville, but abandoned it in order to devote himself to painting. Essentially self-taught, he attended the studio of Paco Molina, where he deepened his knowledge of painting techniques and shared experiences with other artists linked to the Sevillian generation of the 1980s.

He held his first solo exhibition in 1978, at the Librería Antonio Machado in Seville. The works of that period revealed an expressionist language, peopled with figures with tormented faces, in which blues were particularly present. After his exhibition at Galería Seiquer in Madrid in 1985, he began a process of paring down his painting. The human figure gradually gave way to still lifes, in which everyday objects retained the chromatic and expressive intensity of his earliest works.

A grant for young artists from the Asociación Hispano-Israelí allowed him to spend a period in Israel. Numerous exhibitions in Spain followed, including a solo show at Galería Rafael Ortiz in Seville in 1987. In 1996, the Sala de la Caja de Ahorros San Fernando, in Seville and Jerez, hosted a retrospective exhibition devoted to the work of that period. Among the prizes he has received, particular mention should be made of the national competition “Pintores para el 92”, promoted by La Caixa, in which he was distinguished with a work devoted to the guitar, one of his favourite iconographic motifs.

From 2000 onwards, his painting moved closer to geometric abstraction. Planes of colour and rigorously geometric forms came to structure the compositions, which are at times crossed by figurative elements. This investigation centres on the expressive possibilities of form and on the threshold at which a geometric construction acquires the singularity of a work of art.

His relationship with Portugal began in 1998, with a solo exhibition at the gallery O Pomar dos Artistas in Lisbon, followed by other presentations in that space and at Galeria Palpura. In 2022, he exhibited at the Fundação D. Luís I in Cascais. His career also includes solo shows in various Spanish galleries, among them Aina Novak in Madrid, where he presented work in 2019.

He has taken part in fairs such as ARCO, Arte Lisboa, Art Madrid, Arte Santander and Art Valencia, as well as in group and touring exhibitions in several countries of the Americas. For twenty years, he combined his artistic practice with the running of an art gallery in Seville.

His work is part of public and private collections and museums in Spain and abroad, and is documented in publications devoted to contemporary painting in Andalusia.