Rodolfo Opazo

Ghost in the elevator in the port of Valparaíso

Rodolfo Opazo Bernales (born March 8, 1935 in Santiago de Chile ; † June 27, 2019 ibid) was a Chilean painter , engraver , sculptor and professor at the University of Chile .

Life

He came to the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones school in Santiago. However, his schooling had to be interrupted due to his stuttering, as a result of which he came to a school for stutterers and enjoyed private lessons. He later completed his education at the first school. He did his education at the Art Academy of Chile. His artistic career began in 1957 when he was 22 years old. Then he was accepted into workshop 99 to train as an engraver. In 1961 he settled in New York, where he received a Pan American Union scholarship to study art at the Pratt Graphic Art Center.

In 1963, back in Chile , he began his career as a professor at an academy for applied arts and in 1969 became the main professor of the painting workshops of the art faculty of the university in Chile . He held this office until 1993. During his years as a professor, he greatly influenced the students of the 1980s, including Samy Benmayor, Bororo, Matias Pinto D'Aguilar and Omar Gatica. All of these students became part of the so-called eighties class. In an interview with Capital magazine on September 26, 2013, he describes the relationship between painting and poetry: “In 1970 I was appointed full professor at the University of Chile's painting workshop, and I was interested in the reflection of poetry in relation to painting. I thought that if the students could understand Vicente Huidobro, Michel Foucault or TS Eliot, they would understand how reality is formed. Some understood the depth of this thought, others didn't either. "

Rodolfo Opazo Bernales' painting has been very much shaped by his personal experiences since childhood. The reflection on his environment, the person, death and spirituality was present in his entire professional career. In particular the poetry of TS Eliot , César Vallejo and Miguel Hernández and an essay by Michael Foucault, where the latter ponders a person with a mystical attitude as a shaken, attacked and shaken person. Another source of inspiration was Vicente Huidobro , from whom he later distanced himself in order to focus on human abstraction.

In his work man had a universal attitude, sank into his everyday life, which was characterized by pressure, defects and lonely fears. Hence, it could be explained why the artist never painted faces clearly. His great enthusiasm for literature , poetry , music and the rural surroundings that normally surrounded him were his constant sources of inspiration. Through them he evolved and changes in his art took place if he chose to do so.

On December 26, 2013, in an interview with Capital magazine, he told of a stroke he suffered in 2008. This accident prevented him from devoting himself to his art as before and so he had taken retirement. In the interview it is said that one afternoon in his workshop in Lamp he fell so badly on his face that he fell into a coma and suffered a cerebral haemorrhage. He almost died from it. He said that he had not seen any light at the end of the tunnel and that he was still alive thanks to his family, himself and thanks to Father Alberto Hurtado. After he woke up from the coma, he went through a long period of rehabilitation. His family has looked after him ever since.

On several occasions, attempts have been made to categorize Rodolfo Opazo's art. Most of the time his art has been labeled as surrealism . Opazo only intended to express his subjective vision of natural and everyday reality through an iconography necessary for him. The own and specific creation of an image that emerges from its world sometimes coincided with the "accidental" process of surrealism.

Work of art in the El Golf metro station

The main features of his work are the restlessness, the intended incompleteness, the incomplete narrative, the lack of the framework plot, the lack of the end of the story, the color and the composition that unites all of this.

Web links

Commons : Rodolfo Opazo Bernales - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Opazo, Rodolfo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Opazo Bernales, Rodolfo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Chilean painter
DATE OF BIRTH	March 8, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH	Santiago de Chile
DATE OF DEATH	June 27, 2019
Place of death	Santiago de Chile

[1] Biography Rodolfo Opazo Bernales Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

[2] Die Rodolfo Opazo Bernales

[3] Biography of Rodolfo Opazo Bernales

[4] Biografías y Vidas sobre Rodolfo Opazo Bernales