In 1969, Ferrán García Sevilla moved to Barcelona to study at the Central University, where he later lectured in art history. He initially took up conceptual art, but abandoned it in the late 1970s to devote himself exclusively to painting. He went on to become one of the leading international exponents of the 'return to painting' movement of the 1980s, with neo-expressionist works showing influences from Joan Miró, Paul Klee, art brut, primitive oriental cultures and urban art expressions such as graffiti. In the 1980s, he developed his own personal symbolic universe of easily identifiable forms, in which anthropomorphic presences were often reduced to silhouettes. He also included textual references alluding to the artist himself and his work, in strongly cryptic combinations and compositions, but with a great expressive charge, on undefined colour backgrounds. In the late 1980s, his work shifted more and more towards abstraction in synthetic forms, dominated by lines, circles, dots, spirals and arrows, as forms of energy in indefinite spaces, which he executed using stippling, drips and stains. By the turn of the century, these had become pure constellations of colour on neutral backgrounds.
His early series, such as Déus (1981) and later Ruc (1987), earned him a place on the international scene and his work was exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1986), Prospect Frankfurt (Frankfurt, Germany, 1986), Documenta 8 (Kassel, Germany, 1987) and the São Paulo Biennial (1996). He has staged solo exhibitions at the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid, 1989); the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (1996); the Centre del Carme at the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM) (Valencia, 1998); the Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid, 2010); and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, 2010).
In 1969, Ferrán García Sevilla moved to Barcelona to study at the Central University, where he later lectured in art history. He initially took up conceptual art, but abandoned it in the late 1970s to devote himself exclusively to painting. He went on to become one of the leading international exponents of the 'return to painting' movement of the 1980s, with neo-expressionist works showing influences from Joan Miró, Paul Klee, art brut, primitive oriental cultures and urban art expressions such as graffiti. In the 1980s, he developed his own personal symbolic universe of easily identifiable forms, in which anthropomorphic presences were often reduced to silhouettes. He also included textual references alluding to the artist himself and his work, in strongly cryptic combinations and compositions, but with a great expressive charge, on undefined colour backgrounds. In the late 1980s, his work shifted more and more towards abstraction in synthetic forms, dominated by lines, circles, dots, spirals and arrows, as forms of energy in indefinite spaces, which he executed using stippling, drips and stains. By the turn of the century, these had become pure constellations of colour on neutral backgrounds.
His early series, such as Déus (1981) and later Ruc (1987), earned him a place on the international scene and his work was exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1986), Prospect Frankfurt (Frankfurt, Germany, 1986), Documenta 8 (Kassel, Germany, 1987) and the São Paulo Biennial (1996). He has staged solo exhibitions at the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid, 1989); the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (1996); the Centre del Carme at the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM) (Valencia, 1998); the Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid, 2010); and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, 2010).