ANTONIO UGARTE

About the artist

Antonio Ugarte 1961 (Born in Valencia, Venezuela, lives and works in Miami, FL.)

Started his artistic career in his home country. He studied drawing and painting and also received studio practices in photography and sculpture. Ugarte has exhibited his work in numerous group and individual exhibitions, mainly in Venezuela and the US, but also in Austria, Finland, France, Italy, Perú, and Spain. In 1984, he received the Drawing Prize at the 1st Biennial of Visual Arts, in Maracaibo, Venezuela. In 2012, his painting Transition received a Recognition for the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), Chapter Venezuela.

2026 ABSORPTION FIELD SERIES

**ABSORPTION FIELD**

En *Absorption Field*, Antonio Ugarte trabaja directamente sobre algodón crudo, permitiendo que el pigmento sea absorbido por la fibra y que cada gesto quede registrado de forma irreversible.

Paisaje, agua, luz y memoria se funden en superficies donde la imagen aparece y desaparece, dejando rastros, transparencias y resonancias.

Más que representar el paisaje, Ugarte lo transforma en atmósfera, materia y memoria.

**ABSORPTION FIELD**

In *Absorption Field*, Antonio Ugarte works directly on raw cotton, allowing pigment to be absorbed into the fiber and each gesture to remain irreversible.

Landscape, water, light, and memory merge across surfaces where imagery appears and recedes, leaving traces, transparencies, and resonances.

Rather than depicting landscape, Ugarte transforms it into atmosphere, matter, and memory.

LATEST PAST EXHIBITIONS

LAND[E]SCAPES

The Landscape as the Redemption of Humanity

The landscape is more than an environment: it is a living memory and a horizon of the future. In times of ecological crisis, contemplating and representing it become acts of resistance and hope.

Across the American continent, the landscape manifests itself as a vital force—both a memory of what we have transformed and a promise of what can be regenerated. Within this context, art emerges as a bridge between the human and the natural, reminding us of the urgency of rethinking our relationship with the earth.

The artists gathered in this exhibition —Adrián Pujol, Antonio Ugarte, Christian Vinck, Mariana Bunimov, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Víctor Julio González, José Gamarra, and Sigfredo Chacón— invite us to view the American space as an organism in transformation: fragile, wounded, yet capable of renewal.

In each proposal, the landscape is not a static representation but a living organism that confronts the viewer. It becomes a stage for urgent questions: How do we care for what still exists? How do we repair what has been damaged? How do we recognize ourselves once more as part of a larger whole?

This exhibition invites us to explore different perspectives of the American landscape, where nature emerges as a source of ecological redemption. Here, humanity and the natural world are bound by a shared destiny: to survive, to heal, and to transform our relationship with the planet.

Milagros Maldonado 2025

LAND[E]SCAPES

El paisaje como redención de la humanidad

El paisaje es más que un entorno: es una memoria viva y un horizonte de futuro. En tiempos de crisis ecológica, contemplarlo y representarlo se convierten en actos de resistencia y esperanza.

A lo largo del continente americano, el paisaje se manifiesta como una fuerza vital: tanto memoria de lo que hemos transformado como promesa de lo que puede regenerarse. En este contexto, el arte surge como un puente entre lo humano y lo natural, recordándonos la urgencia de repensar nuestra relación con la tierra.

Los artistas reunidos en esta exposición —Adrián Pujol, Antonio Ugarte, Christian Vinck, Mariana Bunimov, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Víctor Julio González, José Gamarra y Sigfredo Chacón— nos invitan a contemplar el espacio americano como un organismo en transformación: frágil, herido, pero capaz de renovarse.

En cada propuesta, el paisaje no es una representación estática, sino un organismo vivo que interpela al espectador. Se convierte en un escenario de preguntas urgentes: ¿Cómo cuidar lo que aún existe? ¿Cómo reparar lo que ha sido dañado? ¿Cómo volver a reconocernos como parte de un todo mayor?

Esta exposición nos invita a explorar distintas perspectivas del paisaje americano, donde la naturaleza se revela como una fuente de redención ecológica. Aquí, la humanidad y el mundo natural están unidos por un destino común: sobrevivir, sanar y transformar nuestra relación con el planeta.

Milagros Maldonado

Opening reception

Saturday May 31 / 2025 Black ship Gallery 853 NE 79th Street, Miami

__"These paintings are an invitation for a pause, for a meditation.
Antonio Ugarte has approached his latest series of Florida Landscapes with the certainty that his paintings will help nurture a mystical appreciation of our environment."
— Axel Stein, 2023
Advisor to the Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art Market

"Only an artist who has carefully studied water’s behavior could turn its myriad appearances into artistic truths."
— Susana Benko, 2012
Art critic and researcher, Member of AICA

"In his paintings, he evokes a dance—sometimes joyful, sometimes solemn—reflecting life in motion."
— María Chiara Teodori, 2008
Poet

"The intention is clear: to summon the spiritual dimension of the observer, inviting a contemplative experience from which symbolic meanings may emerge. Water and light thus merge into an essential equation: life and illumination."
— Lic. Miriam Robles, 1997
Museo Sacro de Caracas Director

"Ugarte arrived in Paris, as he had in other capital cities before, but it was there he experienced the revelation of water—its metaphorical power and visual ritual: timeless waters, places of pilgrimage, the freedom of the vital fluid—reverberant and immaterial—springing forth from hidden sources."
— Juan Carlos Palenzuela, 1995
Art critic and researcher

"The density of the surface—where color and light interact independently of drawing—acquires a conceptual significance."
— Bélgica Rodríguez, 1993
Critic and researcher on visual arts
Honorary President, AICA – International Association of Art Critics, Paris

https://www.metamiami.org/2023/patchofheaven

Antonio Ugarte, "Patch of Heaven" · Meta Miami

Water is an Essential Element of Life
1995

Water is an essential element of life. It is also a defining characteristic of the city of Paris. It is therefore entirely natural that a painter like Antonio José Ugarte—whose work takes water as both subject and objective—should find in Paris the inspiration and diversity of this vital fluid, so rich in meaning, which nourishes his images and strengthens his creative conviction.

Ugarte observes the external world in order to extract fragments that will form his visual language. His entire body of work revolves around water. In the beginning, he focused on the human figure—the athlete, the body. Later, his work shifted toward fountains and predominantly urban landscapes. Eventually, the painting itself became the subject, amidst forms, figures, reflections, ripples—illusions of what is, and what painting suggests.

Ugarte arrived in Paris, as he had in other capital cities before, but it was here that he experienced the revelation of water—its metaphorical power and visual ritual: timeless waters, places of pilgrimage, the freedom of the vital fluid—reverberant and immaterial—springing forth from hidden sources. Water, here, becomes associated with what is constructed within the human being—with the spirituality of life.

Water becomes the axis of a body of work that affirms itself more and more each day, like a torrent that breathes life and strength into dreams of endurance. The North: what flows freely, what always returns.

—Juan Carlos Palenzuela, Paris

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Art critic and visual arts researcher

Bélgica Rodríguez, 1993 (ART NEXUS)

Antonio Ugarte, a Venezuelan artist born in 1961, belongs to a new generation of painters who began to emerge on the local art scene in the early 1980s. His most recent exhibition presents a series of landscapes in which water appears as a central theme—proposed not only as a fluid but as a primordial element essential to human life and its physical surroundings. In this sense, the theme is ancient. But what makes water so significant in this young artist's work? It becomes a vehicle through which he explores aesthetic treatment on the surface of the canvas, while simultaneously serving as a symbol imbued with meaning—mysteries that lie beyond the visible and are left for the viewer to uncover.

Water, along with the elements that frame it—fragments of plants, portions of pools, and so on—functions simultaneously as object and subject. We begin with the prominence of the pictorial surface, which is highly active and dynamic. The vibrant, almost calligraphic brushstrokes convey a sense of movement, both within the canvas and within the spirit. When the surface becomes more explicit in its imagery, paradoxically, the interior meaning of the work tends to recede.

Thus, although it may not appear so at first glance, the viewer is not confronting a cliché, but rather the distilled essence of a “place-landscape”—be it a river bend, a corner of a pool, or any other detail that has drawn the artist’s attention. In these constructed situations, the “place-landscape” acquires a deeply intimate quality, nearly religious in its quiet reverence. Before the work, the viewer becomes a kind of voyeur—peering through a small aperture or window, glimpsing a domestic reality, and simultaneously turning inward to confront something seemingly accessible, yet elusive, because it reflects something within the self.

Mystery is embedded in the resonant blues that dominate the palette. The paintings often tend toward monochrome, another aspect that, while seemingly simple, holds deeper complexity.

Ugarte’s recent works represent a reinterpretation of Impressionism—not in the manner of early 20th-century Venezuelan landscape painters, nor like the generation of the 1970s who revisited the theme with new urgency, seeking to capture its inner essence.

The first group approached landscape with naturalistic and bucolic overtones. The second, often expressionist in nature, expressed a more visceral landscape—sometimes violent, as in the case of “El Indio Guerra,” or more restrained, as seen in Vásquez Brito. Ugarte’s approach, by contrast, might be described as minimalist. His forms are restrained yet expressive, deliberately arranged on the canvas with gestures that are both loving and romantic, opening a path toward a symbolic landscape. For the viewer, what is seen feels familiar, yet simultaneously abstract and non-referential.

The density of the surface—where color and light interact independently of drawing—acquires a conceptual significance. Ugarte draws and structures his forms through light and color. Light, in particular, is a fundamental formal element in his work (with precedents in Reverón and the Impressionists). With light and color—or color and light—he creates subtle tensions and a magnetic visual experience of profound aesthetic depth.

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www.artnexus.com/en/news/5d5c1ad6c70855f6b9ef70e1/antonio-ugarte-river-song

https://susanabenko.blogspot.com/2012/05/el-canto-fluvial-de-antonio-ugarte.html

Amid Undines and Nenuphars: The Mobile and Chromatic Nature of Antonio Ugarte (2012)
By Susana Benko, Researcher and Art Critic, Member of AICA

Where the Waters Come From
Water has remained a constant theme in Antonio Ugarte’s work since the 1990s—a choice far from coincidental. It emerged from a series of events that led the artist to focus part of his creative exploration in this direction.

Indeed, prior to his arrival in Paris in 1994, Ugarte's predominant themes included characters and athletes portrayed in various poses, painted with an expressionist emphasis on form and color. Roberto Guevara associated this phase with a kind of social iconography marked by acute psychological realism, centered on identity and recognition. Even then, many of these athletes were connected to water—a stream, a pool, a hose, or the rain. The sensation of moisture on the skin was as perceptible as the literal depiction of flowing water.

It was Juan Carlos Palenzuela, a critic who closely followed Ugarte’s work, who discerned that water might be a path for the artist to follow. Invited by Palenzuela—then cultural attaché at the Venezuelan Embassy in Paris—to exhibit his work, Ugarte had the opportunity to contemplate the waters of the Seine for several months while preparing for the show. The movement of water, and especially the changing light across different times of day and seasons, became a profound revelation.

From that point onward, Ugarte’s work has oscillated between two principal tendencies: one focused on the human figure—celebrating the body in itself—and another on the representation of nature. The latter takes two forms: as an encompassing environment or as a fragmentary, close-up view. This distinction is evident in his treatment of flowers and water. In the first case, flowers are situated within a natural landscape which, as Bélgica Rodríguez aptly noted, places the viewer within a "landscape-place," suggesting a spatial and immersive experience. In the second, water is presented in detailed, dynamic motion. Nonetheless, these two tendencies often remain deeply interconnected.

From Location to Sensation
Flowers occupy a specific place. They appear as traces of a particular setting, a species, a representation of an emotional state, or a symbolic image of the feminine principle—the origin and transformation of all things. With few exceptions, Ugarte’s flowers are framed within aqueous contexts. These backgrounds are rendered with fluid, formless brushstrokes that evoke the nature of water. The flower, however, bridges two realms: the surface (air) and the submerged (water). It marks a location, a tangible presence within existence. It also serves as a pretext to reassert the value of beauty—both as an object and as an aesthetic ideal. In both interpretations, the viewer’s perception and sensitivity are activated, turning the image into a sensory event. This is why Ugarte’s flower paintings are pure expressions of spiritual intimacy—one of his essential artistic goals: to create spaces of reverie through images that embody beauty and sensuality.

Waters
Water, in a sense, has a mirror-like function. It is no coincidence that Narcissus was captivated by his reflection in a fountain. Nymphs—divinities associated with streams—seemed to adore him. But Narcissus adored only himself, and that was his downfall. Unable to consummate his love, he drowned and transformed into the narcissus flower. The link between flowers and water is ancient and powerful. The myth of Narcissus highlights a fundamental issue for any artist working with figuration: the tension between appearance and reality. Ugarte appears acutely aware of this. Many of his works evoke real images charged with expressive force; others reflect a desire to remain closely tethered to reality. This is most evident when he depicts water in its formless state—its shifting currents and, above all, its ever-changing light. Only an artist who has carefully studied water’s behavior could turn its myriad appearances into artistic truths.

Submerged Photography
Oil painting is not Ugarte’s only medium. Photography plays a crucial role—even as a preparatory step for painting. At times, the relationship between the two is reversible: he photographs his paintings and then intervenes on the prints. This process has yielded compelling results, such as prints on metallic paper whose iridescent surfaces lend a new luminosity to images of water and flora.

At other times, the opposite occurs: photographs are painted over to create entirely new contexts. The pigment creates a veil through which translucent figures are transformed, evoking a sensation of being submerged. Through this technique, Ugarte's heterogeneous photographic motifs become pretexts for reimagining watery environments.

Nymphs
These deities are intimately linked with water; they animate its constant motion and embody its mutable essence. In Ugarte’s work, his myriad figurines—evocations of nymphs—adopt various poses that mirror the shifting nature of water itself. Often portrayed top-to-bottom, these figures transcend their aquatic inspiration to suggest light reverberations—just as ephemeral and changeable. Ugarte’s nymphs are restless, beautiful, and alluring: undines and nenuphars rising from the depths to announce the world’s creation.

Exhibition Summary
This exhibition showcases three media explored by Antonio Ugarte—painting, photography, and installation—united by a central conceptual axis: the themes of water and flowers. It is an invitation to introspection and a renewed encounter with beauty.

Exhibition Hall Text

Aquatic landscapes and the movements of water and flowers are the themes of this exhibition. Antonio Ugarte explores them in two ways: realistically—representing nature as perceived through the senses—and mythically or symbolically, reflecting on the image of water as the origin of life. In the former, light and movement reveal the changing and transformative nature of water. In the latter, water becomes a metaphor for creation itself. From it arise the nymphs—divinities that affirm the continuous flow of water and the emergence of flowers as expressions of beauty. This fluvial song shares one aim: to create spaces of reverie through images that embody beauty and sensuality.

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MUSEUM SHADOWS

Museum Shadows (2013)

The mystery of Museum Shadows, the photographic series exhibited by Antonio Ugarte in 2013, lies in the dialogue between two dimensions of art: one grounded in original reality, the other emerging from invention. The former corresponds to artworks that captivated the artist during his museum visits; the latter, more abstract, reflects a particular vision captured through the camera and reconstructed as a new evocation of both physical and spiritual mystery. What truly matters is space and real form. In immediate sequences and processes, these are transcribed into images of a certain absolute beauty, expressed through total abstraction, guided by shadows and distinctly subjective relationships.

In works such as Totems, Figure, Body, and Ming, the artist appropriates external images, dissolves their naturalistic representation, and transforms the original—still vaguely recognizable—into an "image-shadow": an absolute duality between light and its projection in space.

Photography has long been one of Antonio Ugarte’s passions. From the outset of his career, it drew his interest, leading him to pursue both practical and theoretical training in order to wield it as a creative tool. Museum Shadows represents a continuation of long-standing artistic research that straddles painting and his drive to capture the tragic beauty of universal, historical artworks and their timeless presence in the museum context. Here, time dissolves: the captured image becomes a shadow, a dream-like trace seized through memory. Seeing, in this case, is a memory filled with longing—where familiar silhouettes are expressed through oblong chromatic gradients, shifting between black and white and back again. While Ugarte the painter is known as a colorist, his photographic work is markedly different; here, he is more concerned with the sublime nature of the space in which the image is presented, drawing the viewer into the mystery of its visible non-identity.

From a formal perspective, the visual work in Museum Shadows arises from a deeply personal experimentation, rooted in an emotional and intimate relationship between subject and object. Not just any artwork is selected. Only those that, in some way, manifest an illusory presence are captured. In other words, Ugarte uses his eye and spirit—through a specific technique—to apprehend the object’s real appearance as it is projected into the surrounding atmosphere. What emerges is a process of dematerialization: a reconfiguration of the relationship between object and space that distances the subject from its original, museological context and reimagines its essence.

In this photographic series, Ugarte consciously explores the idea of the artwork as an "object" exposed to the gaze of a diverse public. This notion introduces a spiritual and philosophical dimension to the work. The theme is articulated, both visually and formally, through the interplay of light and shadow, generating atmospheres charged with enigmatic messages and symbolic resonance. The “represented” reality is transfigured into absolute abstraction—a visual language that resists definition, where technique and expression remain deliberately unsaid.

Bélgica Rodríguez
Art critic and visual arts researcher

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ANTONIO UGARTE – COSMIC ESSENCES (2012)
“Mogambo,” a photograph by Antonio Ugarte, irradiates and reflects cosmic essences. The artist’s discerning eye focuses on minimal worlds, elevating them to celestial dimensions.

Using a macro lens, Ugarte captures an entire phenomenological vision from a modest and overlooked street well, filled with a mix of water and oil. His photographic practice reveals the essential beauty of neglected or mundane places—spaces where others might find no meaning.

From microscopic elements, the artist constructs a macroscopic universe: a galactic landscape inhabited by black and gray magmas, colored fluids, and tactile protuberances that shift and expand with an abstract morphology of the cosmos.

Concentrated tinctures—resembling molten rock or volcanic emissions—spread across shimmering, watery surfaces. Viewers are invited to imagine or interpret freely. This black-and-white work evokes a nocturnal atmosphere, recalling the Romantic tradition in its pursuit of the Sublime. Ugarte envisions the ineffable and presents a visual climax of cosmic phenomena.

Milagros Bello, Ph.D.
Curator, Art Critic
December 2012

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RETURN TO THE WATERS
Juan Carlos Palenzuela (1993)

UGARTE’S WATERS AND PATH

Transparency of surface, restless volume, penetrable mirror, eternal circularity, hidden life, and inherent meaning—these are some of the ideas associated with water. Life originates from water, and our own bodies are largely composed of it. It is thus unsurprising that water becomes a point of departure for image-making and an obsessive subject for a painter. Such is the case with Antonio Ugarte.

Marine scenes hold a distinguished place in Venezuelan painting, as demonstrated in the 1990 “Seas” exhibition at the Athenaeum. Yet water, as a decisive thematic or symbolic element, is largely absent from the oeuvre of most Venezuelan painters—with the notable exception of Reverón. Rivers and marine settings are merely incidental for the landscape artists of the Caracas School, serving as part of the scenery rather than defining their personal poetics. In contrast, in the work of Bárbaro Rivas, public fountains, waterfalls, and rivers appear frequently—fountains as urban landmarks, rivers as consistent, grounding presences. In Alirio Palacios’s oneiric universe, the telluric waters of the Orinoco emerge with emotional power—capable of animating life or devastating it through floods and storms. For Pancho Quilici, water becomes a historical force, a reservoir of civilization’s remnants. In Adrián Pujol’s landscapes, water is both protagonist and atmosphere. Within this rich yet varied context, Ugarte’s work stands out with its originality and distinct vision.

Antonio Ugarte, part of the young generation that emerged during the 11th Christian Dior Biennial (1991)—an event that revealed new artistic directions for Venezuelan painting—had already participated in group exhibitions since 1983. His second solo show, held at the VIA Gallery and titled Triathlon, focused on a sport where water plays a central role. From this point onward, water itself—not the athlete’s movement or body—became the true protagonist of his work.

Eventually, the pool captivated his imagination. From then on, this contained body of water became a gathering space for his images.

Ugarte soon turned his gaze to the city, seeking places where water and urban life intersect. In New York, he captured the force of an open faucet or the mid-air suspension of a fountain’s jet; in Paris, he was drawn to the Seine, its quais, and the Pont des Arts; in Lisbon, he turned toward the Atlantic. From afternoon into night, his studio bore witness to these shifting views.

In Caracas, he has repeatedly sought out both public and private waters. His landscapes are urban, their pools reflecting identifiable signs of city life. As the theme grew into an obsession, Ugarte’s pictorial treatment matured. He favored large formats—the bigger, the better. His brushwork grew freer, guided by his motifs, while his colors echoed nature.

In Prados del Este – Alto Prado, the pool occupies nearly the entire canvas, spanning an irregular square and an internal semi-circle. This interplay of lines breaks the composition’s rigidity. At the far right, the reflection of a streetlamp appears; above, buildings on Caracas’s southeastern side. A novel reimagining of the city’s iconography.

Jet captures a burst of water tracing an invisible line through space. Background tones of blue and white recreate an immersive aquatic atmosphere.

Edge shows a vertical view of a pool. To the left, ochre-graded tiles; to the right, deep water. In the lower right, two leaves suggest an alternate spatial layer. The number 25920—perhaps a measurement or symbolic cipher—invites speculation.

That Gentle Rain plays with light in water and depth. At a glance, it might evoke a marina—or perhaps a tribute to Monet. Yet it depicts a subtle expansion of water and rainfall, quietly contained.

Altamira Pool offers a close-up of a swimming pool, part of a garden, and a house in Altamira. Several palm trees stand in the foreground. The pool curves in a crescent, while the house’s patio forms two semi-squares, establishing the composition’s directionality. A peaceful garden, resonant with the quiet interior life of Caracas.

Swimming Pool in Caracas presents a detail of a pool nestled in a lush, enclosed garden. A palm tree stands in the foreground. Vegetation is rendered with a different treatment from the water—full of movement and filtered light, in contrast to the pool’s calmness and broad, sky-reflecting brushstrokes.

Fountain at Los Chorros Park is a key work in Ugarte’s urban visions. It shows an aspect of Maragall’s monument, with water as the central, dynamic force. To the left, a fountain figure is partly veiled by jets and a curtain of water. Mist and turbulence blur the scene, while the park’s pale, upright trees rise in the background. The light’s reverberation dominates. Ugarte’s path is already drawn.

—Juan Carlos Palenzuela, 1993

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G Gallery / Guillermo Barrios, 1986
Antonio Ugarte’s creative output seems to arise from an intimate experience—not because of any unfinished or rudimentary quality, but due to the emotional intensity it conveys.

While his work has already been exhibited in several important salons and national competitions, this solo exhibition allows us to traverse the extraordinary terrain he proposes—vivid and charged with energy.

From his early adolescence, Ugarte displayed a subtle yet persistent fascination with the nude body—initially female figures, crafted in clay and adorned with gauze and trinkets, often depicted as corpses. Later, male figures became the central focus of his artistic practice—rendered in two dimensions, yet always in a state of tension.

These early female sculptures are notable for their detailed execution, from the varied textures and accessories to the handling of proportions, inspired by American industrial dolls of the 1970s. Above all, they stand out for their intense, melodramatic character.

His works on paper, mostly in pastel, do not shy away from narrative. Once again, the human figure appears—drawn from life, yet filtered through the photographic medium. This process introduces new contrasts and depths, without relying on compositional devices already exhausted in other contemporary art experiments.

The dark labyrinths, pits, and uncanny shelters that once served as the backdrop for Ugarte’s “stagings” have gradually evolved—perhaps beginning with Liza, 44 knots (his contribution to the most recent Michelena Salon)—into new environments where seas, sands, and sunlight take center stage. These more festive settings maintain his tradition of strong color dominance.

In his most recent pieces, the clay figures that once populated his paintings now create an intriguing and satirical contrast—evoking the spirit of super-humanism and other current movements—between the overt artificiality of these women and the realism of the surrounding scene.

Here is an artist of the 1980s. This first solo statement reveals a young creator with a vision firmly facing the fin de siècle. We can already sense that his work will traverse this threshold with both responsibility and depth.

El Universal, 23 June 1986

At G Gallery, Antonio Ugarte’s first solo exhibition surprises with its unusual intensity. A young artist from Valencia, Ugarte owes his affiliation with hyperrealism to his background in photography, from which the vivid energy of his pastel works emerges. After winning a young artists’ salon, Ugarte appears to be focused on three fundamental themes: the male body, women, and water.

"Since childhood," he confesses, "I’ve had a strong connection with my dreams, and in all of them, water is present in its many forms: black, white, saline, lacustrine..."

His current artistic direction leans toward depicting multitudes. Yet, a subtle questioning underlies his imagery. “I’ve been criticized for portraying women as dolls,” he says, “but beneath it all, there are many things being questioned—certain values. What I’m trying to say is that this shouldn’t be the only lens through which women are viewed. The same applies to the sportsmen. It may be trendy now, and cultivating the body is fine, but I believe it’s not everything—there are other values, too.”

FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION

EL NACIONAL — June 24, 1986

PLÁSTICA

ROBERTO GUEVARA

Antonio José Ugarte and the Insurgent Humanism of a New Generation

Artistic recognition is always, simultaneously, an act of discovery. By locating ourselves within

our environment, we allow its imprint, its connections, and its testimony to emerge. Yet

Venezuelan art—despite its undeniable strength within the continent—has often kept a curious

distance from the iconographic exploration of everyday reality.

It is difficult to find, in earlier centuries, a sustained engagement with daily life: with its events,

its gentle or brutal faces, its routines. Perhaps this absence was due to the dominance of a

romantic temperament inclined toward idealization and lacking the explicit value of existential

inquiry. That is why moments of freedom in painters such as Arturo Michelena feel so

refreshing today. In his brief thirty-five years, Michelena managed to infuse extraordinary vitality

into images that remain tense and unfinished, as if awaiting new life.

Landscape painting—understood as testimony—barely surfaced with the School of Caracas or

with regional painters like Julio Arraga, who focused on rural, marine, or urban scenes. Even

now, the great encounter with the public sphere—our delegated image of collective existence—

remains largely pending.

After World War II, internationalist schools offered shelter and guidelines. And although the

return to the personal became inevitable, residues of styles, literary tendencies, and codified

formulas continued to gratify as much as they limited. Only over the past two decades has the

emergence of the public event as artistic subject matter gained significant momentum.

The exhibition of the young Valencian painter Antonio José Ugarte prompts this entire

reflection. His work enters what could be called an insurgent humanism, a current that has

taken on lucid, critical, and sometimes fierce positions in artists like Carlos Zerpa, an

unquestionable pioneer in Venezuela.

Ugarte belongs to the generation strengthened by the rise of drawing during the last decade. He

is an artist deeply committed to investigating the human being within the complex environment

of Valencia—a context as challenging as it is fertile for questioning and reaffirmation. There,

creators as diverse as Carlos Rojas, Alexis Mujica, Maricarmen Pérez, Harry Shuster, Edmundo

Vargas, and Eta Corradi have formed a loose alliance rooted in a distinctly humanistic stance—

an alliance Ugarte extends and personalizes.His first solo exhibition reveals a body of work that is,

naturally, uneven—marked by shifts language and intention, though without internal contradiction.

In his male nudes—often mediated by the pose and the photographic source as tools for exploring

the body—one perceives a clear effort to move away from the cold, descriptive scheme.

That rigidity, reminiscent at times of hyperrealist concerns, gradually gives way to the discovery

of social contexts: people in their everyday flow, beachgoers with their objects and garments,

luminous open scenes where emphasis is unnecessary because presence itself is the priority.

Ugarte is now moving toward new frontiers. His drawings and paintings coexist with sculptures

in micro-environments populated by small female figures—aggressive, insect-like presences in

constant motion. Simultaneously, the previously documentary characters alternate with others

entirely imaginary, whose force erupts among ordinary people as if representing the unavoidable

cohabitation with myths.

These myths derive from heightened archetypes: the fatal woman, the female body marketed as

an object of seduction and consumption—an aspirational model imposed by society to condition

its habits. Ugarte’s humanism no longer restricts itself to presenting models or hinting at obscure

symbols; it now moves decisively toward an iconography rooted both in his personal reality and

in the shared reality of his generation.

In this sense, he becomes part of a lineage that still has much to say—precisely because it has

been the most neglected in Venezuelan artistic research. His vision is free, not bound to trends or

styles sanctioned by fashion or media circulation. He is discovering strengths, confronting

difficulties, navigating through the debris of art history in order to claim a fresh, open space

where art can stand as a credible testimony of events and experiences that form the core of

existence.

Ugarte seems eager to move and grow alongside his contemporaries, setting his sights on

horizons still in formation. Yet on this side of those horizons, he also embraces the solitude that

every artist must face—an essential courage to confront the unknown and to build paths toward

the possible, or even toward what once seemed impossible.

Antonio Ugarte’s Photography
By José Napoleón Oropeza
El Carabobeño, Puerta Múltiple, February 1, 1983

"But it is because the tree is captive of its fate as soil that it has opened so many arms."
— João Guimarães Rosa

A solitary figure leans against a wall, decayed by the relentless passing of time; in his distant gaze lingers a search—for an explanation, perhaps, or for someone beyond the window, or a hidden key buried within a landscape that struggles to endure.

From one moment to the next, a year has passed. Perhaps a century. Yet the questioning gaze remains, silently asking what has occurred—and whether the heart is still his own. He wonders if some echo of a long-forgotten time still reverberates in the present: in decay, in nostalgia, or in the weary body descending a stairway and pausing, seated, just to think.

At times, this same figure appears nude, immersed in the sea before a series of open doors. He no longer leans against crumbling walls or peers out windows. Instead, he merges with the tremulous surf—his body slicing the motion of the waves, perhaps even amplifying it. From one moment, from one scene to the next, a mysterious lapse of time has passed for the artist—but for us, the spectators, eternity hovers within these images.

Antonio Ugarte’s photographs reiterate certain elements from one composition to another: a ruined staircase, an abandoned house, a window frame, doors opening in symmetry behind a man who remembers, or who questions where joy and dissipation have gone. He searches for that lost time not in the world around him, but within himself—not in an external mirror where reality is reduced to mere staircases or windows that lead to further windows. In Ugarte’s work, reality resists reflection and transference.

These reflections came to me upon viewing the photographs submitted to the 40th Arturo Michelena Salon of Visual Arts. They returned again, more vividly, during a visit to Ugarte’s studio one rainy afternoon. The mist outside cast a soft, gray light, wrapping the scene in a fleeting atmosphere that seemed to arrive only to disappear, perfectly echoing Ugarte’s world—a world in which ephemerality becomes the very condition of permanence. What is lost defines the self through its ongoing search, its questioning, its futile attempts to grasp a handful of water once more, or to touch again that which once comforted his solitude. The images are etched with gestures that mark this endless seeking: the descent of the same staircase, the leaning on the same crumbling wall. The figure, trapped in a corner, gazes back at us, asking us to mirror his questions—to become the other who also yearns and seeks.

This desolate world—yet terribly beautiful, like Rilke’s angels or Elijah’s ascent in his chariot of fire—cannot be understood unless we close our outward gaze and surrender to Ugarte’s photographic universe, where the figures drift within a seemingly tranquil sea that moves only through an illusion of stillness.

Straddling the border between photography and painting, Antonio Ugarte emerges as a major artist. Few today can, like him, not only merge diverse techniques, but also evoke atmospheres as profound as those he creates. His work reveals a metaphysical shadow where infinite questioning occurs with elemental clarity—with stark, essential, poetic images. His photographs become paintings; his paintings, photographs. Within angled perspectives and layered visions, Ugarte channels echoes of Dürer, Degas, and Michelangelo—but also the anguish of tragic Greek figures, those who have yet to cease questioning, who still descend stairways shaped by impossible hands and gestures.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

ANTONIO UGARTE 1961 (Valencia, Venezuela)

SOLO EXHIBITS

2025

“Reflections” Black Ship gallery, Miami, Fl. USA

2023

“Patch Of Heaven”META Miami / Henrique Faria New York, Wynnwood, Miami, Fl. USA

2020

“My Lonely Men” Artmedia Gallery, Miami, Florida USA

2018

“Shores“ Kelley Roy Gallery, Miami, Fl.USA

“Contacts” Ideobox, Wynnwood, Miami, Fl. USA

2017

“El Amor De Mi Bohio” De Marquez Gallery, Coral Gables, Fl. USA

2016

“Aquatic Landscapes” Ligne Roset, Miami Design District, Fl. USA

“Contained Waters” Datran Center Gallery, Dadeland, Miami, Fl. USA

“Landscapes” HBIF (Hispanic Business Initiative Found) Miami, Fl. USA

2015

“Triatlon” Synergy Wynnwood, Miami, Fl. USA

2014

“La Revelación” La Neumodejar, Madrid, Spain

“Fluvial” White’s Gallery, Miami, Fl. USA

2013

“Man / Nature” Miami Shores Village Hall Lobby Gallery, Artwork is loaned by the artist for one year and displayed at the special request of Miami Shores Fine Arts Commission, Miami, Fl. USA
“Sombras de Museo” Galería G Siete, Centro Cultural Los Galpones, Caracas, Venezuela.(Curated by Bélgica Rodriguez)
“La Decisión de Heracles” Centro Eladio Alemán Sucre, Valencia, Venezuela.(Curated by Belgica Rodriguez)

2012
“Canto Fluvial” William Werner Gallery, Centro de Artes Integradas, Caracas, Venezuela.
“Triathlon; Soul Training” Kelley Roy Gallery, Wynwood Art District, Miami, Fl. USA
“Organic Waters” Brockway Memorial Library, Miami Shores Fine Arts Commission,

2009
"Waters", Kelley Roy Gallery, Wynwood Art District, Miami, FL, USA

2008
"Alma", Palazzo Luzzi, Ostra, Italy

2007
"Law of Attraction", Art Room Contemporary, Miami, FL, USA
"La Revelación", Prada Gallery, Washington, DC, USA

2005
"Triathlon collection" Multimedia, ACC Studio, Miami Beach, Fl, USA
"Retrospective" Galeria Colegio de Abogados, Valencia, Venezuela.
"Calm Water", Valencia, Venezuela
"UP", Roberto Mata, Photography studio, Caracas, Venezuela

2003
"Water Way's" Towers Theater Gallery , Mia, Fl.

2001
"Spirit-Passion", Installation, Mi Casa Art Studio, Miami, Fla. USA

1998
"Frutalia", Sazingg Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida

1997
"De la luz en el agua" (From the light in the water) Sacro Museum, Caracas, Venezuela.

1996
"Triathlon II", Ugarte & Candela Gallery, Coral Gables, Fl - USA.
"Limones" (Lemons) El Galpón, Caracas, Venezuela.
"Cosmic Water" Ugarte & Candela Gallery, Coral Gables, USA.

1995
"Eaux Parisienne", Embassy of Venezuela, Paris - France

1993
"Volver a las Aguas", Galería Vía, Caracas - Venezuela

1990
"Triathlon", Galería Vía, Caracas - Venezuela

1986
First Individual exhibition, Galería "G", Caracas - Venezuela

Group Exhibit

2025

"LandEscapes" META & Henrique Farias NY, Wynnwood, Miami, Fl. USA

2018

“Living Artist” Kelley Roy Gallery, Miami Shores, Florida USA

2015
“Hot Spot” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami, Florida, USA.
“The Hardline” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami, Florida, USA.
“Miami Miami” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami, Florida, USA.
“Things of Beauty” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami, Florida, USA.
“Art Cycle” Coral Gables Art Museum, Coral Gables, Fl. USA
“The Softline Show” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami, Florida, USA.

2014
“67 Bienal, Salón Artes Visuales, Arturo Michelena, Valencía, Venezuela “Artist And Arts”Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami.
“Tour de Force” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami.
“Stellar Miami” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District, Miami.
“Art Scopes””Juried Show, Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District,
Auction WIZO “The heart of giving” Conducted by Alex Slato, Bal Harbor, Miami
Auction FONZO MIAMI, Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District.
“Beautified Objects” Curator’s Voice Art Projects, Wynwood Art District.

2013
“To go into Solitude”, Kelley Roy Gallery, Wynwood Art Dostrict, Miami, Florida, USA
“ FenixART” 2nd Collective Cepforart” Museo Ramón M. Aller, Lanin, Spain

2012
“Curator’s Voice Art Porjects” Wynwood Art District, Miami, Florida, USA.
“66 Bienal, Salón Artes Visuales, Arturo Michelena, Valencía, Venezuela. AICA mention.
“Waters”, Kelley Roy Gallery, Wynwood Art District, Miami, Florida, USA

2011
“Galería CAF”, Corporación Andina de Fomento, Panorama Artistas Jóvenes
Venezolanos, Caracas , Venezuela.
“Spazio Bocca in Galleria”, Milano, Italia.
"MIA" Art Fair, Miami Beach Convention Center
"ART PALM BEACH" Palm Beach convention center, Florida, USA
"Kelley Roy Gallery" Wynwood Art District, Miami, FL, USA
“ARTEAMERICAS” Miami Beach Convention Center

2010
"Pulsion...El Cuerpo como objeto del Deseo en la Fotografía" Museo de Arte Acarigua-Araure , Venezuela
"El Tiempo" Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Qorikancha, Cusco, Peru.
"El Amor de mi Bohio" Cubaocho, Miami, Florida, USA.
"MIA" Art Fair, Miami Convention Center, Miami Beach, Fl. USA

2009
"Biennal Miguel Otero Silva", Ascaso Gallery, Caracas, Venezuela

2008
“64 Salón de Artes Visuales, Arturo Michelena”, Valencia, Venezuela.

2007
Collective exhibition, Galerie Angerer, Tirol, Austria

2006
"Artists of the Americas", Prada Gallery, Georgetown, Washington , DC.

2005
"Salón por la Paz" Hogar Hispano, Valencia, Venezuela
"Jacobo Borges Museum", Mega Exhibition, Caracas, Venezuela
"Ateneo de Valencia", Venezuela
"Art Hoy" Valencia, Venezuela

2002
"Frutalia", Under 5 K, gallery, New York, USA

1999
"Veneto Gallery", Coral Gables, Miami, Florida USA

1998
"Espacio Venezuela" Venezuelan Council , Miami, Fl

1996
"Nuevas Propuestas Pictóricas del Arte Venezolano", Tamanaco Gallery, Caracas,Venezuela
"Kris Lopez" Fine Art Gallery, Miami - USA

1995
"Angels", Ugarte & Candela Gallery, Coral Gables, Fl - USA

1994
"Collective Exhibition of Venezuelan Painters in París", Venezuela Embassy, France
"Realismos" Contemporary Art Museum of Maracay, Venezuela

1993
"Latin American Masters", Meza Fine Art Gallery, Coral Gables, Fl USA
"49 Salón de Artes Visuales, Arturo Michelena", Valencia, Venezuela
"Biennial of Puerto La Cruz", Anzoategui - Venezuela
"Competition of Young Photography", Caracas, Venezuela

1992
Festival Biennial of Visual Arts "Ciudad de Barquisimeto", Lara - Venezuela
"5 Readings" (5 Lecturas), Galería Gala, Valencia - Venezuela
Art Festival of the Americas, "Sports against Drugs", Washington, D.C. - USA
I National Biennial of Visual Arts, Alejandro Otero Museum, Caracas - Venezuela

1991
National Biennial of Photography, Caracas - Venezuela
Second Biennial of Visual Arts "Christian Dior", Caracas - Venezuela
Biennial of Puerto La Cruz, Anzoategui - Venezuela

1990
XVII Competition of Visual Arts "Arturo Michelena", Valencia - Venezuela
Third Biennial of Orient Visual Art, Cúmana - Venezuela
"Caracas Metro", Venezuela Arts Center, New York - USA

1989
"Arte Factos", Galería Vía, Caracas - Venezuela

1988
III National Biennial of Fine Arts, for Drawing, "Museum of Art La Rinconada", Caracas, Venezuela.
“El Metro", Caracas - Venezuela

1987
"Galería Clave", Caracas - Venezuela

1986
Collective Roving exhibition "22", Finland and North Carolina - USA
II Biennial of drawing "Museum of Art La Rinconada", Caracas - Venezuela

1985
Collective Exhibition Aragua competition, Maracay - Venezuela
"41 Salón de Artes Visuales Arturo Michelena", Ateneo de Valencia, Valencia, Venezuela.

1984
"Biennial of Maracaibo", Maracaibo - Venezuela (2nd prize Winner)
Collective Roving exhibition "22", Maracaibo, Mérida, Ciudad Bolívar, Valencia, Venezuela

1983
"39 Salón de Artes Visuales Arturo Michelena", Ateneo de Valencia, Valencia, Venezuela.
"National Competition of Young Artist", Casa Guipuzcoana, La Guaira - Venezuela
"National Salon Prizes", Espacios Cálidos, Ateneo de Caracas
"Salón Aragua", Maracay - Venezuela

1981

Group Performance "Ceremonia con armas blancas" (Participation as: Model)

Author: Carlos Zerpa, Coordinator: Marco Antonio Ettedgui, Sponsored by FUNDARTE, Caracas, Venezuela

1978
Collective Exhibition of "Carabobeños Painters", Valencia - Venezuela
"Photography", School of Fine Arts Arturo Michelena, Venezuela

1977 "Estudio Actual", Caracas - Venezuela

AWARDS

2012
AICA, International Association of Art Critics Recognition, Chapter Venezuela, for his work “Transition”. Chapter Venezuela. Jury Bélgica Rodriguez y Alfredo Fermín

2010
AIA, Photo Competition, Top 20 mention of quality. Coral Gables Museum, Fl. USA

1984
1st Biennale of Visual Arts, Drawing price. Maracaibo, Venezuela

1983
Salón de jóvenes artistas, Grant Award, Casa Guipuzcoana, La Guaira, Estado Vargas, Venezuela

1983
CONAC, Photographic Mention / to the quality of contents

Ugarte's work hangs in among others:

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo , Caracas,Venezuela.
Museo Acarigua-Araure, Acarigua, Venezuela.
AIA The Miami American Institute of Architects, Miami, Florida, USA.
Museo Koricancha, Convento de Santo Domingo, Cusco, Perú.
Colección Cisneros, New York, USA.
Ambassator Keneth Moorfield, Washington, USA.
Rosario Itriago de Taleghani, London, UK.
Seguros Avila, Caracas, Venezuela.
Fundación CANTV de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela.
Compañía METRO de Caracas, Venezuela.
Embajada de Corea del Sur, Caracas, Venezuela.
Gobernación Estado Carabobo , Valencia, Venezuela

Vocational Training

1977-1980

Drawing & Painting, Fine Arts School , "Pilar Taboada", Valencia, Venezuela

1980-1983

Photography, Virgilio Gonzales Studio, Valencia, Venezuela

Publicity Photography, Cesar Cuevas Studio, Caracas, Venezuela

1983-1985

Artistic Photography, Fine Arts School, "Arturo Micheléna", Valencia, Venezuela.

Photography Workshop, Simon Guedez Studio.

Painting, Vladimir Zabaleta Studio, Valencia, Venezuela.

1985-1987

Sculpture, Alexis Mujica Studio, Valencia, Venezuela.

1987-1992

Artistic director for film production "Weyce Films”, Caracas, Venezuela

Photographer of the “Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection” for more than five years.

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