José María Sicilia

Sicilia grew up in Spain under the dictatorship of Franco. In 1975, the year Franco died, he entered the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, where he studied architecture and painting. He became well known internationally in the 1980s for his abstract interpretations of flowers. This acrylic painting on paper belongs to this group. Sicilia's approach to his natural subjects is defined by his interest in the material aspects of painting, as can be discerned in the thick, uneven texture of "Line Flower." "Obviously, the flowers in my paintings are not flowers," Sicilia has said. "They are taken totally out of context and reinterpreted. I do that instinctively ... even with something like a line. A line is usually a frontier, a separation. I see it as a space."