Guillermo Muñoz Vera

GUILLERMO MUÑOZ VERA (Concepción, Chile, 1956).
"Grapes II", 2009.
Oil and white acrylic on canvas.
Attached certificate of authenticity issued by the artist.
It has on the back stamped seal of the Fundación de arte y autores contempéranos.
It presents faults in the frame.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 70 x 100 cm; 74,5 x 104,5 cm (frame).
This painting by Muñoz Vera demonstrates his mastery of contemporary realism. The work represents a bunch of green and purple grapes arranged naturally in a ceramic bowl on a white surface. The vine leaves, arranged organically, frame the composition and reinforce the link between the fruit and its origin.
With a sober palette and soft lighting, Muñoz Vera achieves a serene and contemplative atmosphere. The meticulous attention to detail, in the texture of the grapes, the brilliance of the ceramics and the subtlety of the shadows, reveals a profound observation of reality and an exceptional technical mastery.
The work, although contemporary, refers to the classical tradition of the baroque still life, evoking Dutch and Spanish painting of the 17th century, but with a modern and refined look.

Strongly linked to realism, his work seeks fidelity of representation, mainly linked to themes of the tradition of art history. His work favors the treatment of the surface, in the application of glazes and impastos that produce an ethereal effect. However, despite this atmospheric tenor of the scenes, he does not seem to abandon the sometimes photographic realism to which he seeks to adhere, a tendency that led him to stand out among the realists of the second Spanish generation.
A Chilean painter living in Spain, he studied at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile, where in 1977 he began to work as a teacher. The following year he travels to Madrid to study drawing and anatomy at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University. His solo exhibitions include the Manuel Montt Gallery in Santiago de Chile (1976), the Grifé & Escoda Gallery in Madrid (1986), the Gering-Kulemkapff Gallery in Germany (1987), the Maler Fine Art Gallery in the United States (1996) and the Isabel Aninat Gallery in Chile (1998). In 2000, under the sponsorship of the Madrid City Council, he held his first anthological exhibition at the Centro Cultural de la Villa. In 2003, commissioned by Patrimonio Nacional, he painted a portrait of H. M. the King entitled "Juan Carlos I, hunter". He currently combines his pictorial activity with that of cultural manager at the head of the ARAUCO Foundation, created by him in 1989, where he is a professor of painting and director of the academy. He is considered one of the greatest exponents of the New Spanish Realism. He is represented in the Museum of Visual Arts in Santiago de Chile, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid and the Berardo Museum in Lisbon.