The Sibarist
  • Art
  • 18 Nov 2018

First exhibition of Leonardo, our country’s youngest artist

Charity sale in favour of the NGO Kubuka. November 2018

We are pleased to show you the exhibition of LEONARDO. He is probably the youngest artist in this country at only five years old. We were very excited to host this exhibition in our greenhouse and to collaborate with the artist outreach platform of which we are founders, ART U READY.

L E O N A R D O P A I N T S 1 6 – 1 7 N O V E M B E R 1 7

Plom Gallery, the contemporary art gallery dedicated to children, presented Leonardo Paints, an exhibition of paintings and drawings that Leonardo Rodriguez-Pastrana Caldarola, a little artist of 5 years old, has made during the last year. Letters, numbers, countries, planets, planes are part of this collection that for the first time were on sale on 16 and 17 November in the Greenhouse, where in addition to the exhibition, we held a painting workshop with the artist Jesús de Miguel, from the ART U READY platform. Part of the proceeds from the sale will go to the NGO KUBUKA.

LEONARDO

When he was two and a half years old, he began to draw in the cupboards at home and his parents decided to put a big blackboard wall in his room, so that he could express himself freely. Then came the canvases, big brushes and colours.

Leonardo plays at painting and paints while playing: he shares his hobby with his parents who support him, teach him and stimulate him day by day. With total freedom to express himself, he paints in large format everything he is learning at school: letters, numbers, countries… but also his favourite heroes, animals, monsters and cranes.

His style, despite having no referents, reminds us of Basquiat’s neo-expressionism: use and mixture of different materials, techniques and themes… everything can be mixed and coexist in one of his paintings. Leonardo has an Instagram account managed by his father, in which every day there are more and more followers and interested people. For this reason, and to be able to do their bit for a charitable cause, they have decided to show and sell some of the pieces.

PLOM GALLERY

Plom Gallery is the first contemporary art gallery aimed at children. It exhibits and sells works by adult artists specially chosen to stimulate the creativity and imagination of children. The gallery is in Barcelona and is about to celebrate its first 5 years of life (just like Leonardo). Martha Zimmermann is the founder and director.

JESÚS DE MIGUEL

Jesús de Miguel’s work proposes a journey into his particular universe. The expressiveness of his strokes and colours always gives us a glimpse of something beyond the initial impression, a vibrant and luminous world that persuades and seduces the viewer. Through his work, in which he is not afraid to tackle large formats, the artist draws from disparate references, giving life to an absolutely personal language.

In the activities of Saturday 17/11, Jesús presented an art workshop focused on children. A large-scale work was painted, spread out on the floor, in which the children lost the reference of form and drawing because of their approach to the oversized image. The surprise came when, with distance, they realised that the result was not the composition they thought they were drawing. It was a curious and amusing experience for them.

KUBUKA

KUBUKA means to wake up, to take a step forward, to start living. It was born from the drive of a group of young people who decided to undertake a social project in Kenya and Zambia in 2013. Its mission is to create sustainable development by focusing on entrepreneurship and education as the driving force for change, supporting projects that are born and last over time thanks to the effort and empowerment of the beneficiary community.

Their work has consisted of identifying projects that can be maintained over time and are supported by local people or groups. In Spain, they give awareness-raising talks and look for collaborators among different entrepreneurs. They want to bring the world of cooperation closer to society through events and voluntary work.

20% of the profits raised from the sale of Leonardo’s paintings will go specifically to Lisha Children’s Home, a home that the organisation runs in Kenya for orphaned children.

ART U READY

ART U READY is a visibility platform for creators with a transversal and peripheral perspective. A node that connects creators, collectors and restless audiences with one objective: to build a line of thought between design, architecture and art. The platform opens unique spaces usually not accessible to the public in the centre of Madrid to present contemporary authors from different disciplines, mostly emerging.