Book dossier

Gregorio Cuartas

by Santiago Londoño Vélez

One of the best-kept secrets of contemporary Colombian art, Benedict monk Gregorio Cuartas, an architect and painter, has developed a very personal work from the mid-1960s in two complementary fields: painting and architecture. Based on solid geometric structuring and outstanding technical prowess, he raises an invitation to the search for spirituality by moving the accessory. Landscapes, still lifes and heads are the pictorial issues he prefers. This book is a well-deserved tribute that publicizes much of his work, created mainly in Europe and little disclosed in Colombia. The book brings together the different stages of the work of this remarkable artist characteristic by a certain mystical spirit and worked in a realistic photographic way in which images built with few elements predominate, in peculiar atmospheres. The final chapter is dedicated to his liturgical art projects in France and his work of restoration and architecture ins the Benedictine monastic tradition, particularly in the monastery of the Epiphany, in Guatapé (Antioquia). This luxury edition is a well-deserved tribute to the life and work of Cuartas, who has been settled for more than 50 years in Paris. There he established his artistic career next to names such as Emma Reyes, Fernando Botero, Luis Caballero, Antonio Barrera and Dario Morales.