About Raúl Lara

Raúl Lara Naranjo was born in Moron de la Frontera, Seville, Spain 30/04/1980. Although he was trained briefly in painting as an adolescent at an academy in Spain, Raúl is primarily a self-taught artist. He have loved creating art since he was a child, spending hours scribbling on any paper that was to hand. Nearly all of his painting knowledge is the result of following his interests, passions and curiosity, as well as his willingness to learn. Influenced by aspects of the work of both contemporary artists such as Miquel Barceló and classic figures like the passionate and controversial 17th Century painter Caravaggio, Raúl's oeuvre combines traditional and modern elements. His recent work explores the two parts that we all have, the "me" that we show and the inside one of ourselves, the hidden one. Mark Twain said that every man is a moon with a hidden face that never shows anyone. He represents this on the canvas with a painting done in a more or less classical way, using oils and acrylics, this would be the face we showed. Once finished and duly dried he transfers the image used as a motive for the painting over the canvas resulting a black and white image . This creates a work that navigates between color and black and white, the thin and smooth layer of paint versus the texture caused by the transfer and the mediums used for it or the finished figure of the painting in front of the broken image result of the transfer. This idea is clearly extrapolated to the use we give to social networks and the difference between our lives "offline" and "online" where in many cases not everything is as we show or where we pour hidden opinions into invented profiles