Miguel Macaya

MIGUEL MACAYA (Santander, 1964).
“Horse,” 2005.
Oil on panel.
Signed and dated on the reverse.
Measurements: 122 x 122 x 3 cm.

This generously sized painting explores one of Miguel Macaya’s most characteristic motifs: animal portraiture, and specifically, the horse. The significance of this aspect of his body of work was underscored in the retrospective held in 2008 at the Casa de Vacas in Madrid, where large-scale horse paintings were among the central themes representing his previous fifteen years of work. Dated 2005, the work was created during a period of intense exhibition activity for the artist, with solo shows that year at the Sala Parés in Barcelona and the Galería Jorge Alcolea in Madrid.

Macaya eliminates any spatial references to focus attention on the animal’s anatomy and presence. The modeling emerges through very subdued lighting and visible brushstrokes, particularly rich in the transition between ochres, whites, and earth tones. This treatment of chiaroscuro—which critics have linked to his admiration for the tenebrist tradition, Rembrandt, and Goya—endows the horse with an almost sculptural presence without resorting to meticulous detail.

Miguel Macaya began his exhibition career in the 1980s and has developed a personal figurative style centered on still lifes and animals. His painting is characterized by a restrained palette and a use of chiaroscuro that links his contemporary language with the Spanish pictorial tradition. He has exhibited regularly in Spanish and European galleries, establishing a career marked by broad continuity. His work is part of collections such as those of the Museu Can Framis and the Fundació Vila Casas in Barcelona, the Museo de Arte de Almería, and the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen.