Alejandro Reino Sarmiento (1935–2018) - Self-portrait In The Studio - Xl

Oil on canvas. Original painting.

In Alejandro Reino’s portrait, magical realism abandons the tropical exoticism of its origins to settle into an atmosphere of crystalline and unsettling stillness, where the academic precision of the brushstroke conceals a fissure from which the extraordinary bursts forth. His figures, enveloped in a nearly metaphysical, sepulchral silence, emerge from neutral backgrounds or icy geometries with the undeniable precision of Baroque painting, yet they are imbued with a veiled enigma: fixed gazes that seem to contemplate invisible visions, flesh of an almost mineral pallor, and a cold light that does not illuminate but petrifies the moment. There is no theatrical artifice or strident surrealism in his touch; Reino’s magic lies in the invisible space between technical rigor and everyday hallucination, transforming each portrait into a liturgy where the ordinary becomes sacred and the human face, torn from the tyranny of time, becomes the absolute stage for an imminent revelation.

- Unframed image dimensions: 113 x 146 cm