Fabian Perez

About three weeks ago, Sarah and I were invited to Whitewall Galleries in Cheltenham to view the new collection by superstar Argentinian artist, Fabian Perez. A chance to look at some beautiful artwork and drink free Champagne? Sounded good to me...

Perez is an outstanding artist whose colourful life story is crying out to be filmed... ideally with Johnny Depp in the lead role. After losing both parents at an early age, Perez grew up in poverty in Buenos Aires, surrounded by whores and gamblers, before moving to Italy and Japan to study both fine art and martial arts, and finally settling in Los Angeles. In recent years he has been artistically involved with the 2010 Latin Grammy Awards, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics.

His work is romantic and sensual with an old-fashioned, film noir sensibility. His moody, acrylic paintings are snapshots of the lives of beautiful Latin women and tough, sharply-dressed ladykillers. Images recur  -  cocktail dresses, wine glasses chiming in toasts, the tango, balconies with wrought-iron railings, snap-brim Fedoras, Japanese parasols, rain-swept streets, and always beautiful, strong characters...

As well as exhibiting his new paintings and prints, Fabian was also selling and signing copies of his new book, All The Romance We Left Behind. I treated myself to a copy ( that's my Christmas present sorted! ) and the great man signed it for me. Each book came with a signed, numbered print and above is a scan of my copy of  Saba With Glass Of Red Wine. It really is a lovely piece of work. It was great to wander around the gallery and see the artwork up close, and a real pleasure to meet Fabian who was friendly and charming  -  and actually walked up to me and shook my hand before I had a chance to stumble in his direction. I've got no idea what I said to him ( probably something inane ) but he was happy to sign the book and have his photo taken with the two of us... as fresh as though he hadn't been doing this all week in numerous galleries.
Below is an unfortunately out-of-focus photo of Sarah ( going weak at the knees ) and I with Fabian...

...and here's his dedication in the book:

And just a few more favourites ( sadly not in my "collection"  -  but I can dream )