Artist: Fernando Molero

Fernando Molero's vibrant paintings in colors of azure and emerald evoke his childhood home in southern Spain. Born in Granada, Molero has always been intrigued by the beauty of the Mediterranean light as it plays on the Moorish style buildings and southern landscapes. He has been working towards capturing this light on canvas his entire career.

"Many artists use light as a tool to illuminate their subjects," says Molero. "I make light the subject itself." In the soft lines of light that drape his paintings in veil-like fashion or bisect them in harder-edged Venetian blind style, Molero works at painting the edges of pure light, showing gradations from dim to hot white.

The illuminated veil acts as a curtain between the painting and the viewer. Painting the veil is a complex technical endeavor, accomplished very slowly to maintain the transparency on the canvas. The curtain acts as both barrier and invitation to the viewer to probe the painting more deeply.

"The veil, a kind of fourth dimension, creates a visual game of hide and seek," says Molero. This hide and seek pun is depicted literally in the painting Enter (may I take your hand in mine? featuring a seductive female, entreating us to step through the curtain of light, if we dare.

Real architectural sites, such as the 14th-century Patio de los Arrayanes in Alhambra, Granada, make appearances in Molero's paintings, as do fantastical buildings, conjured from the artist's imagination. Many paintings in this current series depict an invented land called Buveria. "I recently realized that I was painting the same place over and over again from various vantage points and at different times of day," he explains. "I decided to give this place a name, as it has become as real to me as anywhere."

Molero studied at the University of Barcelona, 1980-83, and taught art at the Leonardo da Vinci Academy of Art, Barcelona, 1984-1990. He moved to New York in 1997, where he resides in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Molero's work has been featured in many galleries in Barcelona, including Artur Ramon Contemporani, Galeria Tertre and Casa Golferichs, as well as in New York City at Studio Facchetti. This is his first exhibition with SEFA.