Juan Bautista Nieto

JUAN BAUTISTA NIETO (Lora del Rio, Seville, 1963).
"Nude with his back turned".
Mixed media on board.
Signed.
Measurements: 105 x 180 cm; 127 x 198 cm (frame).

This impressive work by Juan Bautista Nieto is a masterful example of contemporary Spanish hyperrealism. Nieto is known for his technical ability to capture human skin and textures with an almost photographic-like precision while maintaining a deeply painterly and emotional atmosphere. The figure is presented in a classic odalisque or reclining nude pose, focusing all the attention on the anatomy of the back and the curve of the hip, while the lighting is soft and directed, generating a very volumetric modeling of the body.
Juan Baitista Nieto exhibited for the first time at the Caja de Ahorros de San Fernando in Seville in 1985, with enormous success. Since then, he has exhibited on numerous occasions in Seville, different cities in Spain, Europe, the United States and Latin America.
Like other hyperrealist painters, his production is of very few paintings each year, his large format works take him between six and nine months to finish them. His work presents an exaggerated obsession to recreate a reality that goes beyond the exact representation of a photograph. He transcends the subject and the concept of hyperrealism by using it as a vehicle to take us to another level in which an extraordinary kind of intensity is achieved that, paradoxically, creates a great sense of unreality. His technique is equally obsessive and demanding and exhaustive. All facets of his subject matter are described with meticulous and personal accuracy of detail. He uses as techniques, oil and acrylic, which he combines by delicate and continuous layers, of multiple shades and tones of light, shadows and density.
For many experts and art critics, he is considered one of the greatest exponents of hyperrealism in Spain. The influence of the Extremaduran hyperrealist painter Eduardo Naranjo can be observed in some of his works.