Name Fernando Villapol | ||
 | ||
Fernando Villapol Parapar (born 26 February 1953 in San Tirso de Abres, Asturias Spain) is a museum curator and art critic, most famous as a contemporary Galician sculptor. He currently lives and works in the town of Bretoña (Lugo) located in Galicia. He is also the founder of the Ethnographic-Pedagogic Museum in Bretoña. He studied at the College of Applied Arts in Lugo, Spain, although can be considered an autodidact, attributing most of his knowledge and acquired skills through his self-funded travels and investigations of sculpture across the globe (e.g. Africa, Cuba, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden).
Contents
- Materials of choice
- Artistic style
- Awards and distinctions
- Ethnographic Pedagogic Museum
- Public collections
- Selected solo exhibitions
- References
Materials of choice
Villapol's sculptures embody a wide variety of materials, including but not limited to:
Artistic style
Critics of Villapol's work often define his sculptures as one or combination of: realism, abstractism, and surrealism. The artist has been said to be inspired by works from Diego Velázquez, Urbano Lugrís, Eugenio Granell, and Salvador Dalí. More recently, critics have suggested that Villapol's style cannot be defined by any one of these labels but as a fusion of all three: REalism + ABstractism + SUrrealism. This has been recently stated by the artist himself:
Critics have not succeeded in finding a single style to define my body of work. The majority of critics arrive at the conclusion that my body of work is a mixture of realism, abstractism, and surrealism. Using the first syllables from each of these styles I have created a new word to better define the artistic style that I create, called reabsu.
Awards and distinctions
Ethnographic-Pedagogic Museum
The museum was founded and is curated by Villapol in 2002 houses a wide display of rural Galician culture and contemporary Galician art. The pieces from local folk history show the evolution of the various important trades in the district: clog maker, baker, carpenter, shoemaker, basket weaver, and farming. There are also education displays which show a typical Galician school, doctor's office, dentist's office, chemist as they were seen in the 19th century. Additionally, the museum contains original manuscripts by Otero Pedrayo, Vicente Risco, Bouza Brey, Antonio Fraguas, Iglesia Alvariño, Camilo García Trelles, González Garcés, and Castroviejo, as well as a wide collection of paintings from contemporary Galician artists: Urbano Lugrís, Laxeiro, Castrogil, Vilar Chao, Mariano Garcia Patiño and Mayor Balboa. Also, the museum also boasts a collection of over 2000 authentic Galician and Asturian soda syphon bottles.