Ricardo Montesdeoca is a multidisciplinary artist born in 1962 in the Canary Islands (Spain). He studied in the Escuela de Artes Aplicadas y Oficios Artísticos (School of Applied Arts and Artistic Professions). He also received formation in chalcographic engravement in workshops offered by the Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria (the government administration of Gran Canaria). Today, he teaches analogue photography in his study Espacio Creativo Tres Palmas (Tres Palmas Creative Space) in the island of Gran Canaria. His 40 years of artistic work have involved painting, engravement and analogue photography, in particular darkroom and alternative processes.
Since the beginning of his artistic career he developed an interest in merging painting and photography, by using chiaroscuro and playing with lights, shadows, blurred images and errors, in his conviction that what is seemingly a mistake can turn out to be a final piece which conveys strong emotions, thus teaching you to accept imperfections and learn from them. Despite being influenced by abstract art and Goya's first works, for the last two decades he has shifted into a more intimist and poetic approach, without, however, leaving irony and social criticism aside.
His current project, Africa, which is still in progress, is the acknowledgement of the land where he lives, from a symbolic and poetic point of view. It is the acceptance of this continent as a vital space, of its light and shadows, of its culture and its identity signs. But it is also a social and political criticism aimed at defending a territory which has always been cast aside, in a world in which all compasses point north and turn their backs on the south, and where the only option left for its inhabitants is to cross the sea. Africa is a visual poem, a tribute to the young Sudanese poet Abdel Wahab Yousif, also known as Latinos, famous within his generation, and who perished in August 2020 when the rubber boat in which he was travelling in the hope of reaching European coasts, sank.
Ricardo Montesdeoca's works can be found in public and private collections in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Israel, Sweden, France, Germany and the USA, as well as in the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (Atlantic Centre of Modern Art) and in the collection of the Government of the Canary Islands.
