In the paintings of Ivan Triay It is always summer, the sun shines and tranquility reigns. That’s when the protagonist scenario is your Minorca birth, his main source of inspiration, as happens again in his latest exhibition, a collection titled “Good Life” and that already hangs on the walls of the gallery Ciutadella Vidrartuntil June 27.
The thing about the beautiful and eternal summer has an explanation. And the artist, who left the Island at the age of 19 to study in Barcelonathe city in which he still resides, he spends his summers in Menorca “recharging his batteries” and feeding on countless images that during the rest of the year he turns into pieces of art in his studio in Barcelona.
«Menorca, for me, is basically summer, good weather, good vibes… If I lived all year round, maybe I would also get other inspiration and I would draw winter, who knows,” he says. And the summer theme is recurring in the career of the Ciutadella artist, “it hasn’t changed much,” he acknowledges. The difference is that before everything was flatter, and now he works much more on detail and plays with the different perspectives of the landscape .
Triay is specialized in evoking a dream Menorca, the one he knew and enjoyed in his childhood and youth and that has little to do with today. An island where “when you were little you went to the beach and closed the barriers as you passed, with the animals always nearby,” he recalls. And what is the Good Life for Ivan Triay? “Well, go back to Menorca, take the boat with your friends and spend four days going around the Island”, something that he can still continue doing.
Triay feels longing for the Menorca of his childhood, and although his paintings seem to be timeless, there are details that are responsible for setting an approximate date. «If you look, when vehicles and motorcycles come out I always use old models. I like to represent the sensation of movement », she confesses.
All his creation has a Mediterranean air with a retro touch. Environments that also evoke the sensation and iconography of Italian films such as “The sweet life”acknowledges the artist, who is delighted to be exhibiting at home again: his last individual show in Ciutadella was before the pandemic. “Good Life” It is the result of a minor project, focused on a small collection of paintings from Sant Joan, which has grown with prints from all over the Island.
