Rafael Ramírez (painter)

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Rafael Ramírez (artist name: Rafael Ramírez-Máro ; * 1959 in Lima / Peru ) is a Peruvian painter . He lives and works mainly in the Raeren district of Hauset in East Belgium .

Live and act

Ramirez is the son of the Peruvian artist Antonio Máro and his German wife Susanne Quellmalz. From the age of 12, he learned the basics of painting in the studio of his father, which this 1979 in the former Villa planks in the Belgian Hauset on the banks of Göhl , which during the Second World War as a base of General Dwight D. Eisenhower established served, would have.

After Ramírez had made up his Abitur in Mettmann in 1980 , he first studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Hannelore Köhler and then from 1984 with Pierre Deuse at the Institut Saint-Luc in Liège and from 1986 at the Cologne International School of Design with Hubert Schaffmeister and Hans Rolf Maria Koller . In order to deepen his knowledge for the creation of the great literary picture cycles, he also studied art history , philosophy and German at RWTH Aachen from 1988 to 1994 . At the same time he went on study trips to the most important museums in the world, where he dealt intensively with the techniques of the old masters and deepened his knowledge.

Residence, studio and Ramírez Academy in Hauset

Since the beginning of his studies, Ramírez has been working, initially on the side and later full-time, as a "freelance artist" in his father's studio, until 2014 also on joint projects with him for public space. There he founded the "Ramírez-Máro-Institut" in 2011, which serves as a meeting place for international artists for exhibitions, project ideas and for the exchange of information.

In addition, Ramírez has been a member of the “Fundación Arte y Autores Contemporáneos” in Madrid since 2003 and of the “Algemeen Kristelijk Kunstenaarsverbond” (AKKV; German: General Christian Artists Association) in the Netherlands .

Music plays a major role in the Ramírez family, with Rafael as a violinist , accompanied by his father at the piano, occasionally appearing in public as a duo and performing music from classical to jazz. The fact that Rafael's younger brother Alexander-Sergei Ramírez (* 1962) professor of guitar at the Robert Schumann University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf and his youngest brother Benjamin Ramírez violinist at and with the Cologne University of Music and Dance fits well with the family's artistic and musical orientation Violinist and university professor Ute Hasenauer is married.

Ramírez-Máro Institute

The "Ramírez-Máro-Institut" (RMI) founded in 2011 sees itself as a family company in which the various artistic endeavors are bundled. The RMI also maintains a special artistic exchange with the Princely House of Khevenhüller in Carinthia , at whose Hochosterwitz Castle important exhibitions have been organized every year since 2010. The collaboration of the RMI with the initiators of the Euriade , a festival of dialogue, at which the Martin Buber plaque has been awarded to international personalities every year since 2002 in the Rolduc Abbey in Kerkrade, is also of particular importance .

In addition, the RMI cooperates with the European campus of the previously unaccredited "Martin Buber University Brussels" and organizes exhibitions as well as lectures in its own building, which are held by the human educator Werner Janssen and Rafael Ramírez himself, but also by visiting professors and Specialists from the field of art, music and literature are held.

The RMI offers a broad spectrum in dealing with music, within the framework of which mostly its own family members, in particular the brothers of Rafael Ramírez and their partners, as well as musicians friends such as Sheila Arnold , offer lectures and courses on instrumental studies and musicology or Organize concert evenings.

The “Ramírez-Máro-Academy” attached to the institute complements the RMI's program and offers art seminars and intensive courses in the field of various painting techniques under the direction of renowned artists such as the painter and sculptor Stephanie Binding .

Works (selection)

Image detail from Los ultimos años de Ximénez

The oeuvre of Ramírez works ranges from the purely abstract to the classical repertoire . In doing so, he was shaped above all by the work with his father, who sought to link his native culture with the culture of Europe in his works and implemented it in a convincing way. As an absolute family man, Rafael Ramírez was very much involved in his father's work from 1972 to 2014 and together with him he realized exhibition works for the Biennale of São Paulo and the Biennale di Venezia in the 1980s . In 1978 the jointly created picture “Inti huatana” (“Resting place of the sun”) followed in Meinerzhagen , which with its format of 6 x 20 m is one of the largest oil paintings of the 20th century, and a year later the order for four large-format ones Oil paintings (2 × 3 m) for the foyer of the town hall in Hilden .

A focus of his own work became portrait painting and he received numerous commissions for portraits of important figures in history, including Michael Gorbachev and his wife Raissa , the Princess Haya of Jordan , the philosopher Martin Buber , the Miss Universum 2002 Oxana Gennadjewna Fyodorova , the writer Waris Dirie and the actress Shawne Fielding , but also some mayors from Stolberg such as Hermann-Josef Kaltenborn , Wolfgang Henning and Hans Fischer .

In addition, several picture cycles were created in which Ramírez was able to incorporate his variety of his own courses, including about:

  • Don Quixote , Woyzeck , Julius Cesar, mythology and carnival in the field of literature,
  • Mozart, Bach, ballet, flamenco, tango and expressive dance in the field of music
  • Holocaust, Spanish Civil War , Immigration, Gender Violence and Violence Against Children in History and Contemporary History
  • Pope John Paul II , Therese von Lisieux and yoga in the field of religion and spirituality.

Exhibitions (selection)

Numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland, the USA and Perú accompany Ramírez's artistic career as well as participation in many important art fairs, including:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Janou Müller-Beuermann: Máro-Kunst: When father and son compose music with painting , in: magazine purRegio, edition autumn 2016
  2. ^ Sibylle Offergeld: New cultural center enriches the region , in: Grenz-Echo from June 16, 2011
  3. ↑ Martin Klever: The double Máro , in Grenz-Echo from August 31, 2019
  4. ↑ Vita Alexander-Sergei Ramírez
  5. ^ Sibylle Offergeld: Impulse from the Ramírez Máro Institute , in Grenz-Echo from August 22, 2014
  6. ↑ Homepage of the city of Meinerzhagen , accessed on June 20, 2018
  7. ↑ Hans-Dieter Arntz : Pictures against forgetting! Holocaust cycle by Rafael Ramírez Máro , exhibition report from January 11, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Ramírez, Rafael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ramírez-Máro, Rafael (stage name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Peruvian-Belgian painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Lima , Peru