GONZHO - Antes de dormir

Francisco González Diez “Gonzho”, Jaén. Trained in various workshops of prestigious artists. Animated film designer (series, feature films, TV advertising). Window-dresser designer.. Restorer and technician of monumental architecture. Drawing and painting teacher at the Civic Center of the City Council of Cobisa (Toledo) Drawing and painting teacher of experimental art in Toledo. Exhibitions held: - 2003 Provincial Council of Albacete. La Asunción Cultural Center. Albacete. - 2003 Caja Rural de Toledo. Toledo. - 2004 La Despernada. Villanueva de la Cañada. Madrid. - 2004 La Soledad Arroyo Gallery. Toledo. - 2005 Toledo Historical Archive. Toledo. - 2005 La Soledad Arroyo Gallery. Toledo. - 2005 Caja Madrid. Manzanares. Ciudad Real. - 2006 Caja Rural de Toledo. Toledo. - 2007 International Fair of Contemporary Art “ARCALE 2007”. Valladolid. - 2007 Benacazón Palace. Toledo. - 2007 International Show Arte sin Fronteras. La Plata. Argentina. - 2007 International Fair of Contemporary Art “AGRIGENTO ARTE SEGNALI DEL TEMPO 2007”. Agrigento. Italy. - 2007 San Vicente Gallery of Art. San Vicente del Raspeig. Alicante. - 2007 Benacazón Palace. Collective Solidarity Art. Toledo. - 2008 San Vicente Gallery of Art. Co-founder of the 1st National Meeting of Art Lovers. Alicante. - 2008 Art al Carrer. San Vicente del Raspeig. Alicante. - 2008 Alicante Athenaeum. Collective Solidarity Art Exhibition. Alicante. - 2008 San Vicente Gallery of Art. Collective. San Vicente del Raspeig. Alicante. - 2008 Alba Modern Art Gallery. Ferrara. Italy. - 2008 II National Meeting of Friends of Art. Buenavista Civic Center. Toledo.. - 2008 International Marziart Gallery. Hamburg. Germany. - 2008 Collective exhibition at the World Water and Sustainable Development Business Summit. The Expo. Universal. Zaragoza. 2008 - 2008 Collective exhibition “Art and Environment” Goya AAPP room. Zaragoza. - 2009 Caja Rural de Toledo. Toledo. - 2013 Exhibition in the “III Poetry Contest Ángel Deza” Castillo de Bayuela, Toledo. - 2015/2016 work donated for Charity Art Exhibition in favor of the Asturian Lupus Association Alas Solidarias - 2016 Winter Salon Tandem Art Gallery Sabadell, Barcelona - 2016 Collective exhibition at Aires de Córdoba Gallery, Córdoba. - 2016 Collective exhibition at FeedingArt Gallery, Madrid. - 2016 Despacio Space, Toledo. - 2016 Fariza Gallery, Getxo, Bilbao. - 2016 Galerie Thuillier, Paris - 2017 San Clemente, Toledo - 2017 Santana Art Gallery, Madrid - 2018 Exhibition at Mayte Spínola Contemporary Art Museum in Marmolejo (Jaén) - 2018 Speaker in school workshops introducing the art world and pilot experience against school bullying, at CEIP Europa in Toledo. - 2018 Collective exhibition at Feel & Flow Gallery, Madrid. - 2019 May: Solo exhibition at Art Auction, at Catawiki auction house. - 2019 Symposiums on cave painting, pigment preparation and practical mural process of 18 m2 for children aged 8 and 9 at CEIP Europa in Toledo. - 2019 September: Solo exhibition at Art Auction, at Catawiki. - 2019 November: Solo exhibition at Art Auction, at Catawiki. - 2020 April: Solo exhibition at Art Auction, at Catawiki. - 2020 June: Solo exhibition at Art Auction, at Catawiki. - 2021 September: “The Art of Gonzho” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. - 2022 Exhibition at The Brick Lane Gallery, London. - 2022 July: “The Art of Gonzho” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. - 2022 November: “The Art of Gonzho” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. - 2023 February: “The Art of Gonzho” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. - 2023 April : “The Art of Gonzho” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. - 2024 September: “Between the Abstract and the Figurative: The Art of Gonzho and Ana Marc” Shared exhibition at Art Auction, at Catawiki. December: “Stories in Motion: The Art of Gozho” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. - 2025 January: “Individual Gonzho Auction.” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. February: “Stories in Motion: The Art of Gonzho.” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. March: “Stories in Motion: The Art of Gonzho.” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. April: “Stories in Motion: The Art of Gonzho.” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. June: “Dialogue Between Artists: Gonzho and Cosmin” Shared Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. July: “Stories in Motion: The Art of Gonzho.” Solo Auction Exhibition at Catawiki. PERMANENT WORK: - Three works in the Mayte Spinola Marmolejo Contemporary Art Museum (Jaén) Works in private collections in: Spain, United States (California, Florida, New York, Virginia, New Mexico), Japan, China, France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Azores, Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Austria, Romania, United Kingdom, Croatia, Lithuania, Norway, Switzerland, Malta, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Singapore, Denmark, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Estonia, Mexico, Finland, United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. - Work in permanent auction on the Catawiki Contemporary Art platform (www.catawiki.es) - Top Artist at Catawiki auction house Article written by Andrea García Casal: Gonzho By Andrea García Casal, art historian and theorist “The dorsal turn is an iconic act of rebellion in which the figure strips itself of its identity and becomes a signifier susceptible to mysterious interpretation. This anonymous vision is the negation of the known stamp, the destruction of the famous image that opens the path to the representation of men and women without lineage, [...]. The dorsality implies, [...] anonymity and the ‘loss of identity’.” The meanings of the figures that in painting turn their backs on the viewer. Cristina Parellada Bezares. 2023. Researcher Cristina Parellada Bezares has proposed the concept of dorsality to explain the presence of characters who stand with their backs to the viewer in a visual representation, which is not trivial, since it is the negation of the opposite term, frontalidad. In general, frontalidad is the most common way of representation, the norm in art, even today, affecting the Western sphere. The frontal reveals, exposes; the dorsal impedes the gaze of the other; it hides. The painter Gonzho (Marmolejo, 1967) uses dorsality in much of his artistic work, abandoning the ingrained and obsolete tradition of frontalidad, with the idea of destroying “the famous image,” that is, one centered on showing the figures from their front, making them identifiable—even if only at a pre-iconographic level, associating them with concrete but superficial features, in any case. A back-turned character becomes anonymous and, suddenly, transforms into otherness. Otherness for the audience, who cannot go further in exploring the represented subject. They cannot access its contemplation and discovery, it becomes hermetic to them; it entails a “mysterious” and biased interpretation of it. The theorist John Berger asserted that “the visible world is ordered in relation to the spectator, in the same way that, in another time, the universe was thought to be ordered in relation to God (Ways of Seeing).” However, Gonzho plays with the audience, questions their authoritative gaze, the power they have over the image, captured on a medium, static and apparently submissive. With this twist, the dorsal characters of our protagonist elude, and at the same time, immerse the public in their surroundings, dissolving the barrier between spectator and artwork. Following the history of cinema, Laura Mulvey, it is possible to determine that frontalidad, which began in the West with the arts of Antiquity, especially sculpture, came to dominate, and worsen, in cinema: “[a]lthough the film is actually being shown, though it is there to be seen, the projection conditions and narrative conventions give the spectator the illusion of looking at a private world” (Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, 1975). The private world of cinema’s characters becomes objectified and pleases the viewer. That his painting subverts the roles of looking and being looked is interesting, even though, as Parellada Bezares notes in her thesis, dorsality has appeared only sporadically in art history, thus resting on a tradition with subtle but fully nonconformist against conventions, which reemerges in contemporary art with very specific artists, like Gonzho. It is useful to recall the Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, the most famous in cultivating dorsality, though there are earlier and later examples. Nevertheless, Gonzho’s protagonists are located in settings characterized by absence, though more recently the artist also embraces more contextualized environments, for example natural areas, highlighting the coast and its beaches. These works convey a sense of calm and repose, even without knowing the details of the artwork’s meaning. Regarding places of absence, they appear in the artist’s works as those where no scenery is visible. The individual character or, on occasions, the collective, is absorbed in an anti-localization, in a non-place, in an unidentifiable space, at least for the public. There is nothing but the figure against usually neutral, dark backgrounds. The secrecy evoked by dorsality is reinforced by this issue. Moreover, our author is characterized by his post-impressionist style, with relatively agile and blurred contours of the figures. Coupled with the somber chromatic and the suppression of the surroundings, the impressions of strangeness, suspicion, curiosity and doubt are strengthened. The purist aesthetic merely underscores all these aspects. Nevertheless, the breaking perspective employed by the author, though it initially clashes with the public and may cause unease, also helps him to immerse into the unknown, nameless context where the character or characters reside. In this way, a peculiar contemplative experience arises that transcends mere observation to become an act of introspection shared between the protagonist(s) of the painting and the public. He is inviting the latter to reflect on themselves, to think and rethink, and even to accept the existence of unknown aspects of reality, of existence, that may open them to new viewpoints, and/or to embrace the incomprehensible. Dorsality, thanks to Gonzho, becomes a language of resistance and originality against the frontal, repetitive and explicit image, leading the audience to deny its power, understand its limitations, but also opening them to new possibilities, slowing down their gaze so that they cannot do it as they have been taught, and instead, they can learn to look in another way, to contemplate, to remain in a visual silence where they can project themselves.