Formidable Magazine. What was your first creative impulse? Alejandro Bombín. I guess it had to do with painting. I kind of remember drawing with my sister when we were small children on a table blanket, but actually it is a false memory built from an old family photograph. So I can’t say for sure.
F.M. Is there a defining moment that made you realize art was your thing? A.B. More than a decision it’s been a kind of inevitable process.I’ve always been kin to that feeling of not being that focusing on something like painting gives me. My Dad took us to the Prado museum there you have images, ideas, history, but I found the magic in the paint itself, on how a paste can be intelligent and sensitive.I think it was there where I began to believe in Art.
F.M. How would you define your work? A.B. A pictorial approach to the forces at play in digital images; information overload, reproducibility and transience. I am obsessed with issues like visual communication in education or image degradation in the realm of memory.
F.M. Inspirational artists? A.B. I don’t know if there is any, all of them probably. But those I look up to are Goya, Velázquez, El Bosco, Freud, Neo Rauch…
F.M. Would you say your studio setting influences your work? A.B. Of course, but not the studio space itself, but what’s around it. Is it in the country or in an urban environment, private or shared, and so on.
F.M. Is the studio just a place for production or also inspiration is inherent to the studio space? I think there is a always a conceptualization of the work prior to the studio, but definitely there is also an inspiration that arises within the work proccess, and it obviously takes place in the studio, so I’d say the studio is both, a place for inspiration and production.
F:M. How is a day in the life of Alejando Bombín? A.B. Well… e-mails, some calls, a lot of painting. I also like to cook. I brush my teeth and listen to some music before sleeping. My life does not produce great stories.
F.M. Best and worst night out? A.B. It’s outdoors and you can hear a guitar playing somewhere. I’m also in good company and I feel no need to say something clever or anything. The worst night it’s when you have to do something important next morning, you go early to bed to get a good night sleep, but actually can’t blink an eye.
F.M. What do you love and hate about Madrid? A.B. I like how Madrid’s natural light is blindingly bright in winter and in summer. It’s the people, open and vital, always willing to meet someone new. The worst is that “other” people.
