The beauty of a pretty woman seems natural to portray. However, true beauty lies in portraying people who aren’t beautiful, nor young, much less perfect, being able to make them graceful and even attractive. That is the true talent that resides in the artists point of view.

Confucius once said: “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

Javier Arizabalo portrays the elderly in a mesmerising manner, in which their tenderness and fragility are accentuated, reiterating their natural charm. His models convey a great peacefulness and a simplicity of feelings which spark a great serenity. Through his brushstrokes, he is able to reenact deep emotional images with great intimacy, and the sensitivity that triggers strong empathy in the viewer.

A meticulous realism, displaying a photographic component, in which the delicacy of his models is eye-catching, through careful and subtle poses that portray an enhanced expressiveness and a concern for the tiniest details.

The hand series demonstrates and evidentiates the intensity and the personality that Javier is able to give to his models, that seem to speak and express their feelings.

We can witness in detail the mastery with which he paints the skin using a sublime palette, where attention to detail is evident, the exquisite reproduction of texture and the mastery of anatomy.

Javier seems to be able to paint with light. In his paintings, the intense and brilliant light show all of its properties; it is reflected, absorbed, transmitted or refracted.  It seductively washes the surfaces and the skin textures, giving them a specific aura.

By Pedro Boaventura • Excerpt from Masters of Painting - Volume 1




 

With classical light and execution, Javier Arizabalo tries to recreate emotional images, with the assistance of models that carry a significant, vital burden. Through mastery of light and shadow, he is also capable of reproducing the minute subtleties of youthful skin and presenting an ideal beauty, along with making the photorealistic technique more intimate.

His nuanced color and strident nothingness play with earthy, full, warm tones, sometimes harmonized by complementing and accenting lush green tones, although also a reddish piece of fabric, the color of blood and vital by nature, can create a counterpoint to enhance the ensemble. 

His figures move in spaces without literature, almost naked, with extreme simplicity and are at the same time timeless, unable to be placed in a particular time, so that nothing distracts us from what really matters: silence and contemplation.

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