Seville hosts the first exhibition dedicated to the painter José Pérez Ocaña
It's been 70 years since the birth, and 34 since the premature death, of a man who became a symbol. He was a painter, gay rights activist... and a controversial figure because he used his liberated lifestyle as a way of confronting repression in Spain during the 1970s. Now, Ocaña¿s persona is being brought back to life in a grand exhibition in Seville. It¿s the first exhibition in Seville dedicated to the artist from Cantillana.
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It's been 70 years since the birth, and 34 since the premature death, of a man who became a symbol. He was a painter, gay rights activist... and a controversial figure because he used his liberated lifestyle as a way of confronting repression in Spain during the 1970s. Now, Ocaña¿s persona is being brought back to life in a grand exhibition in Seville. It¿s the first exhibition in Seville dedicated to the artist from Cantillana.
This is how he painted when he first began... And this is perhaps his best known self-portrait... With his bowler hat, which also appears in the exhibition... José Pérez Ocaña was born in 1947, in the Sevillian town of Cantillana.
He was a self-declared proud homosexual, which, in that time, meant certain marginalisation. In the seventies he moved to Barcelona, there he became a popular figure, known for being festive, transgressive and free.
Clearly, that persona provides his work with symbolism... Hence, "Ocaña, transvestite painting", the title of this exhibit. Where we can observe his particular iconography... From his virgins and his childhood fetishes to this portrait of his mother in blue... Or this wildly different series about being arrested due to his condition. And here, with the cartoonist Nazario.
For the first time, the exhibit also features his acrylic pieces from the final stage of his career... (ATMOSPHERE) ... Including this last piece, which he left unfinished... And it¿s topped off with curious pieces like this one...
A foreboding piece... Only a year later, he would die both tragically and prematurely... At 36 years of age, the sun costume that he was wearing during a festival in his town caught fire.--- He left dressed like the sun, Carlos Cano sang to him... And the film director Ventura Pons had already dedicated his work, ¿Ocaña, a flashing portrait¿, to him... A true symbol was being born.
