The mural of the life of Patxi Buldain

“The real, daytime world did not fully satisfy Patxi”. With these words, Alfredo RuizMayor of Huarte, has begun his emotional speech about the contemporary artist who died at the end of January. The town in which Patxi Buldain developed a large part of his life, he wanted to remember him with the inauguration of a square in his honor and a mural in which his face and the phrase that defined his life are drawn: “I am true to myself”.

Patxi was “a unique and creative type, a free soul. He considered that life woke up with sleep,” commented the mayor. For many years, he has become the reference for many contemporary artists who pursued creative freedom and who, like him, were infected with the anarchic spirit. “Patxi challenged with his art everything that seemed unfair to him.” This way of dealing with the canvas was also a reflection of his life. In 1948 he went into exile in France. because he refused to work in the army. He lived, as he could, in Paris, where he learned about the work of manet and established relationships with intellectuals such as Albert Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre. With the end of Franco’s rule, when his painting was still not known in Spain, he returned home, to Huarte, and was able to set up his factory, although he continued creating until almost the end of his days. Just as he said, “I can’t sit still. I need to come up with new shapes with painting. On this important date we commemorate the artist and man, to the thinking movement”.

For him, the republic day It was a fundamental day to recover the memory of all the people who gave their lives for this cause. For this reason, his family did not hesitate to choose this day to inaugurate the square in his honor: “I’m sure he would be very happy.” In any case, his daughter Celaida has insisted on the idea that his father was a world citizen that he had learned with the passage of time and the experience acquired in each experience: “what a nice way to consider yourself, right? My grandpa used to say when we were little ‘I am Basque. Big head to have. Go to school and not learn‘. We laughed a lot at home with him. When he was only a year and a half old he had to go live with his grandparents and, during his first years at school, he had complications with the language. This resulted in his way of expression being different from the ordinary.

Later, he lived during his youth in the Zapateria street along with his brothers. “The Buldain have always been wonder-workers; They knew how to do everything and had a great sense of humor.”, assured Celaida. Furthermore, her family has always enthusiastically supported her artistic career. “When he was little he made his first exhibition on the façade of the apartment where he lived. The neighbors sat down to rest on the benches next door and took their time to look at his drawings,” he joked.

Already in his exile to Paris, the capital of light and the arts, Patxi was captivated by the romantic aura; so much so that it was there where, at a dance, he fell in love with the woman who was going to become the woman of his life: “The impression that that meeting made on him became the first portrait we have of our mother,” he recalled with nostalgia. . For her part, Nuria He continued the love story by explaining that life is made of choices and renunciations and that, in that case, his father’s decision was “to put aside the recognition he could have in Paris to stay with our mother here in Huarte. She always supported her professional development.”

During this new era in his life, the contemporary artist offered a painting workshop for the town’s residents where he encouraged them to find their own color palette, to find their way of seeing the world. On the other hand, he also organized other social and cultural activities in which the values ​​that defined his life were always present: vitality, closeness and humanity. “He believed in socialization of culture; in making it accessible and easy for all audiences,” she assured.

Patxi, in several of his interviews, stated that all his paintings, despite being different from each other, form a mural: the mural of his life. For this reason, Huarte remembers him forever with a painting that, wherever he is, will make him dream big.