Pedro María Asensio was born in Cuenca in 1950. Under the influence of the environment of the Museum of Abstract Art he discovers that painting is his true vocation. In 1977 he moved to Ibiza, where he has developed his artistic career for 40 years.
During his formative years, inspired by Abstract Expressionism and typographies, he experimented with different artistic languages. The economic crisis of the first half of the 90’s leads him to develop a social awareness that is reflected in his exhibitions through Conceptual Art. From then on, prompted by the successive economic and social crises that hit Spain people, he opted for the installation as an artistic vehicle to deepen his intellectual discourse. From those years it is worth mentioning the exhibitions «Disposiciones Transitorias»(Transitory Dispositions) (1992-1995), «28 Gramos»(28 Grams) (1996) and «Irreparables» (Irreparable) (1996).
In 2000 an art residency in New York City turned his painting inside out. The Manhattan skyline, the rhythms printed in the three-dimensional grid of urban patterns and the American painting of the second half of the twentieth century, inspired a new formal language based on Geometric Abstraction with which Asensio will combine large formats, geometric patterns, space depth, and chromatic vibration.
His first exhibition “Ventanas de Nueva York” (Windows of New York) (2002), will be followed by «Futuros perdidos” (Lost Futures) (2005) and with it, Asensio starts a period of creative maturity. In «Futuros perdidos» (Lost Futures) the artist proposes a dialogue between geometric abstract painting and utopian architecture, in order to create emotional strain and a personal intellectual discourse.
“Futuros Perdidos»(Lost Futures) will be followed in 2008 by «Eneagramas» (Enneagrams) and
«Partituras del Silencio” (Scores of Silence). In those years, the artist notably refines his style. His grid patterns, more complex and deeper, suggest the spectator impossible volumetrics and optical games.
The formal rigor of his rationalist painting has not been an obstacle to the fact that poetry has always been present in his work. Notable are his collaborations with the poet Vicente Valero –among which it is worth mentioning his graphic work for the book «La Subida» (2006)-, the
travelling exhibition «Interpreting Ramon Llull. The Book of Lover and Belover» (2009-2011) of the Institut Ramon Llull and his participation in the exhibition «40 Anys, Quaranta Poetes, XL Artistes» (2019) of the Consellería de Cultura del Govern Balear among others.
In 2011 takes place in Ibiza the exhibition «El Silencio de las Horas»(The Silence of the Hours) in which he achieves recognition as a multidisciplinary artist in the Balearic Islands. In this exhibition, Asensio leaves aside the severity of Geometric Abstraction to unleash his most lyrical and personal side. The exhibition, which summarizes two intense years of work, is the largest and most varied of those Asensio has presented in Ibiza so far. It displays paintings, sculptures, personal objects, exquisite books, installations, and a video clip shot with the filmmaker Enrique Villalonga.
Since then, Asensio has constantly worked on this conceptual artwork. Thus, “El Silencio de las Horas” evolves and grows since his first exhibition in 2011. The group exhibition cARTó (Ibiza, Madrid, Denia and Berlin 2011), Espacio 8 (Madrid 2014), 40 Anys, Quaranta Poetes, XL Artistes (Balearic Islands and Valencian Community 2018-2019) and L’Aventura de la Gràfica (Palma de Mallorca, 2019) featured new creations of this particular microcosm.
In 2013 the artist opened a studio in Madrid and since then he has been working between Madrid, Cuenca, and Ibiza. In Madrid his work was shown in two exhibitions: «Espacio Límite II»(Boundary Space ll) (2016) and «Espacio Límite I» (Boundary Space l) (2015), in both he combines his paintings with abstract sculptures and the constructivist installation «Futuros Perdidos» (Lost Futures), a metaphor of the urban utopia that could not be.
In 2017 he returns to Ibiza with new and more complex pieces in «Unsustainable Development». In 2018 the Russian mogul Mikhail Prokhorov presents the private collection of his Ibizan estate Sa Ferradura, that includes an artwork made by the artist.
With «Autarquía» (Autarchy) (2019), he returns to the College of Architects of Ibiza fourteen years after «Futuros perdidos»(Lost Futures). “Autarquía” (Autarchy) consciously evokes the former exhibition. It presents fourteen abstract paintings and an installation representing a dystopian social organization. The artist tries to share his reflections about contemporary egotism and the consequences of real estate speculation with the local society. And at the same time, he invites us to let us seduce by optical illusions and colour vibrations.
With “Autarquía” (Autarchy) Asensio initiates a professional collaboration with Cristina Sánchez Cardoso, who since 2019 has curated his exhibitions.
Pedro María Asensio presents simultaneously, at the “Sa Nostra Sala” gallery in Ibiza and the “Faro de ses Coves Blanques” in San Antonio, the exhibition «Punto de Fuga» (Vanishing point) (2021). The emblematic hall of Vila hosts a group of unseen paintings, fruit of the constant and exhaustive work developed during the COVID 19 pandemic. In his new exhibition, Asensio proposes a “Promenade Artistique” in which each work, from its unique individuality, is the starting point of an optical game in which perspective and chromatic vibration are enhanced for the viewer’s aesthetic and intellectual delight. Among the works on display, the «Sefirot»series, inspired by Umberto Eco’s «Foucault’s Pendulum» stands out.
Due to its marine essence, the Faro de Ses Coves Blanques is the ideal frame to exhibit the sculptural-pictorial group «Peces del Mediterráneo» (Fishes of the Mediterranean). In this proposal the artist uses art as a means of raising social awareness about the care and sustainability of the marine landscapes and ecosystems. «Peces del Mediterráneo» (Fishes of the Mediterranean) will travel to Denia and Formentera in 2022.
The exhibition combines metallic fish-shaped sculptures inspired by the linear stroke in the drawings of the avant-garde masters Picasso and Matisse, with a series of large-format paintings evoking the chromatic essences of the Mediterranean. The spatial distribution of the elements that make up the work, added to their mobile and schematic nature, offers the viewer different possibilities of aesthetic interaction with the sculptures and the landscape of abstract paintings inspired by light, water, and the Mediterranean coast.
In the educational field he was the headmaster of the primary school Can Misses in Ibiza, where he fostered the use of art with students who had integration and verbal expression difficulties.
He participated in the interesting European project «Museums of the City» (1996-2000) aimed at schoolchildren from Rome, Marseille, and Ibiza, developing a research project on didactic applications oriented to bring the museums closer to young audiences.
He was a founding member of the Ibiza branch of the Association of Visual Artists of the Balearic Islands, a member of the IbizArtGroup and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Ibiza (MACE). He has frequently collaborated with the Institut Ramon Llull the Institut d’Estudis Balearics in itinerant exhibitions. He has carried out art residences and attended workshops in Berlin (1986), Denmark (1999), New York (2000) and Rome (2004).
EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS FOR 2022 – 2023
Among the artist’s short-term projects, it is worth mentioning the exhibitions he will present at the Espacio Cruz Bajo Gallery in Madrid (November 2021 – march 2022). The Antonio Perez Foundation of Cuenca (April 2022 – June 2022), which hosts in its two exhibitions halls in Cuenca «Caminos de Luz» (Paths of Light) and San Clemente «Anatomía de la Sombra» (Shadow Anatomy), a large retrospective of his work during the last twenty years.
At the same time, he will start an artistic collaboration with the digital gallery Ibiza Token to develop an exclusive NFT art project (2021 – 2022).
The exhibition «Hipogeo 4004″(Hypogeum 4004), will be displayed at the Archaeological Museum of Ibiza at its premises in Puig des Molins (spring – summer 2023). Asensio will confront his new works of » El Silencio de las horas» with archaeological pieces from the museum’s collection, chosen by the archaeologist and communicator Carmen Mezquida.
And to end the year 2022, between October and December, the Casal de Cultura de Can Gelabert in Binissalem and the Faro de la Mola in Formentera will present two exhibits of paintings focused on Geometric Abstraction.