Ricardo Cavada’s artistic career has been inextricably linked to that of the gallery since its foundation in 1988 by Fernando Silió. The bond of trust that arose between the two from their first exhibition together the following year, remained intact when Juan Silió took over the management and continues to today, wrapped in a deep friendship and mutual admiration that goes far beyond the strictly commercial.
These thirty-six years of artist-gallerist relationship undoubtedly represent a long journey in which the world was changing as the artist developed his craft, searching for his own sincere style while also maturing as a person. Cavada says that in his early days painting was a constant, hard struggle, determined by the need to show what one is capable of doing. But little by little, through hard work and persistence, joys and also disappointments, he gradually came to paint from a more reflective and calm attitude, more relaxed, learning to listen to the painting demands, becoming a transmitter of an art that seems to be dictated, it is not clear from where.
In this long journey, the artist moves forward enjoying the route because, as the poet Konstantínos Kaváfis warns in his Ithaca, it is the road and its landscapes, the learning, the adventures and the encounters that should really matter to the traveller. If in such an emblematic poem, Ithaca is a metaphor for the inner journey, for the very course of life, let us not forget that in The Odyssey Ithaca is the origin, the home to which the hero needs to return no matter how many difficulties stand in his way.
Ricardo Cavada makes this journey towards pure painting, putting on his side his original honesty as a creator, ignoring the siren songs of modernity and new technologies, of dizzying time and perverse speed, of the demands of the market and fashions, always changing and disorienting. The artist’s compass and his goal must remain firm.
After a brief period of experimentation and search through more figurative and expressionist styles, Cavada soon sensed his preference for abstraction, for being freer and more open, and directed his steps towards a painting devoid of narrative in which colour, composition and strictly plastic resources (texture, brushstrokes, glazes…) speak directly to the emotion and also to the intellect.
The paintings shown in this singular journey, almost all of which have been painted in the last five years, silently demand from the spectator an exercise in serene contemplation, a search for subtle detail, an attentive look at the flow of the pigment on the surface, the chromatic encounters and the interplay of intensities. Finally, he proposes to enjoy PAINTING, with capital letters.
El viaje
RICARDO CAVADA
20th June – 16th August 2025
Juan Silió Gallery
C/ Sol 45, bajo. 39003 Santander.
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:30AM – 1:30PM / 6 – 9PM