August Vilella creates oil paintings by means of a surreal intuitive method. Thanks to this method and without using any previous sketches or ideas, he gives shape to his past and future through the subconscious mind. Normally when people use this kind of automatic painting process the result is usually very abstract, but the curious point, in this case, is that he not only produces a figurative works but, beyond that, his art pieces have a very particular dreamlike aura and a magic, metaphoric, and even philosophical language, which invites the viewer to reflect.
All this iconography is represented with a very refined technic, his style can remind us of old masters because he works with very small brushes, puts many slim and transparent layers of oil paint and plays with the lights and shadows. Also, at the end of the artwork, he puts many layers of different varnish, which he mixes in a special way to reach a special smooth and brightness of his painting that can remind us of classical museum paintings.
All this dedicated process gives his artworks a very deep atmosphere and vibrating colors. On the other hand, the creative process turns out to be completely intuitively improvised and unintentional so that the message of each painting comes out only when the work of art is completed. Like the own August Vilella is used to say: “When we remove the will of the artist regarding his creation, each painting becomes a work of art of the world and for the world; a piece of art in which all people can find themselves reflected and, above all, a work of art with a life of its own that wants to be seen, to wake and to be felt.”
In some way the process is similar to Jazz music but in painting. When he works in his art pieces he is used to lose control of the brush, and the shapes start to appear automatically like when we observe the clouds in the sky, and this starts to form some elements that we think to recognize. Actually, he usually says that he doesn’t choose the topics and characters of his paintings, in some way they choose him.
Thanks to that, each character that appears in his canvas become unique, and each artwork unrepeatable. All this turns each of his paintings into an Odyssey, which moves into the depths of the vast subjective ocean, and whose outcome is always unknown, different and unexpected… All this turns each of the paintings of August Vilella into an Odyssey, which moves down into the depths of the vast subjective ocean, whose outcome is always unknown, different and unexpected…
