Eusebio Sempere (1923-1985)
Onil (Alicante)
Onil (Alicante)
Eusebio Sempere conceives his work as a changing reality with the rhythm of light. An admirable game in which surfaces seem to vibrate before the spectator’s eyes. He is a pioneer in the use of new techniques, and like Yturralde, since the 1960s he has been interested in the possibilities offered by incipient computer technology.
He coincided with Yturralde, Chillida and other great Spanish artists in Paris between 1948 and 1959, during the postwar years of the triumph of the Vanguard at the hands of Mondrian, Kandinsky, Jean Arp and Georges Braque. Those aesthetic postulates influenced Eusebio Sempere definitively in what would be a permanent attraction to Geometric Abstraction and Kinetic Art.
It was in Paris where he started to work with geometric forms superimposed on a black background to create the sensation of movement. His obsession with light crossing infinite space achieved great success in the French capital city, where his luminous reliefs, done in 1955 for the Salon of New Realities, were enthusiastically applauded.
Upon his return to Spain around 1960, Sempere became part of the vanguardist current that was trying modernize the artistic panorama in a country which still continued to be isolated 20 years after the Spanish Civil War. His kinetic sculptures are surprising, based on metallic rods and the playful sense that he creates in some of his works, requiring the active participation of the spectator who must manipulate springs and mechanisms.
In 1960 hi visited the United States and there he started to work with computers. He would soon stand out for his contribution to Op Art with a different sensitivity with respect to light and color, because Eusebio Sempere always used much softer tones than other artists.
His work materializes with diverse techniques and media: drawing, gouache, oils, prints, sculptures with lead and chromed steel . . . . A wide variety of his work can be seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Alicante that owns the most important collection of his creations. However, they can also be seen at institutions as prestigious as the MoMa in New York or the British Museum in London.
He coincided with Yturralde, Chillida and other great Spanish artists in Paris between 1948 and 1959, during the postwar years of the triumph of the Vanguard at the hands of Mondrian, Kandinsky, Jean Arp and Georges Braque. Those aesthetic postulates influenced Eusebio Sempere definitively in what would be a permanent attraction to Geometric Abstraction and Kinetic Art.
It was in Paris where he started to work with geometric forms superimposed on a black background to create the sensation of movement. His obsession with light crossing infinite space achieved great success in the French capital city, where his luminous reliefs, done in 1955 for the Salon of New Realities, were enthusiastically applauded.
Upon his return to Spain around 1960, Sempere became part of the vanguardist current that was trying modernize the artistic panorama in a country which still continued to be isolated 20 years after the Spanish Civil War. His kinetic sculptures are surprising, based on metallic rods and the playful sense that he creates in some of his works, requiring the active participation of the spectator who must manipulate springs and mechanisms.
In 1960 hi visited the United States and there he started to work with computers. He would soon stand out for his contribution to Op Art with a different sensitivity with respect to light and color, because Eusebio Sempere always used much softer tones than other artists.
His work materializes with diverse techniques and media: drawing, gouache, oils, prints, sculptures with lead and chromed steel . . . . A wide variety of his work can be seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Alicante that owns the most important collection of his creations. However, they can also be seen at institutions as prestigious as the MoMa in New York or the British Museum in London.