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. Sicilia's approach to his subjects is defined by his interest in the material aspects of painting, and in the early 1990s he took up wax as a medium. Here he encased leaves from a medieval book of Spanish poetry in wax, painting a large bee on the surface. This visceral work encompasses dualities which are common in Sicilia's oeuvre, such as preservation and decay, and nature and culture.