Sevillian and son and grandson of painters, Antonio Barahona entered pictorial creation as a child, in a way as natural as it was unconscious. After graduating in Fine Arts from the University of his city, and exhibiting his work both in Spain and in various European cities – he has been selected in calls such as Iniciarte or the Antonio Gala Foundation scholarships -, this summer he returned to Barcelona to display in the Sala Parés “ÍNDEX BLAU”, works linked to Andalusian patios, since Barahona does not find in costumbrismo reasons to avoid, and to the color blue, which he associates with a calm that also links to what he requires the very exercise of painting and which should require its contemplation.
Furthermore, blue is a Mediterranean tone, which links its roots with the landscape and sky of the city in which he now exhibits his work, and which in its diversity of tones – his production invites us to generate almost an archive of them – alludes for this author to certain memories, to imaginations and, in any case, to the culture and daily life of those who did not grow up far from the sea and inhabited architectures that responded to similar climates and were oriented towards light. Transit spaces predominate in these compositions: interiors, corridors and, above all, those patios that no one occupies here, but that do seem lived-in: chairs and tables, bathtubs, umbrellas and fabrics appear in them that provide relief from the sun and that take us to a warm Andalusia that is attached to its origins, but not folkloric, as Barahona tends to emphasize.
Antonio Barahona. happy summer
Antonio Barahona. Andalusian patio
Antonio Barahona. The white bathtub
The choice of figuration and the choice of motifs that suggest rest and quiet life in the face of the empire of technology constitute very conscious decisions on the part of this artist: he is interested in our perception being necessarily slow and deliberate and that we are aware of the execution time of which these canvases are the result and of which any reflective activity requires; those that, for Barahona, are today an act of resistance, or faith, in the face of quick glances and endless scrolling.
He is not concerned, for similar reasons, with fitting into the thematic and technical lines predominant among the authors of his generation, but rather with finding his own joy among the brushes, and this involves focusing on the moments of beauty that everyday life houses and on the gesture and the minimal object that they can contain, in those who appreciate it with enough time, the greatest or universal.
More than transmitting specific messages, in any case this artist wants to offer us painting that gives us enjoyment and that signals to the viewer that there has always been room in canvases, in addition to shouting, for kindness.
In Barahona’s words, We ask ourselves who we have been, who we are and who we want to be.
Because the future is something very old.
Because the essential does not change.
Because blue is in no hurry.
Antonio Barahona. Pure blue IV
Antonio Barahona. Pure blue III
Antonio Barahona. Index blau
Antonio Barahona. «BLAU INDEX»
PARÉS ROOM
C/Petritxol, 5
Barcelona
From June 4 to September 10, 2026
