DANIEL TXOPITEA ­ BIOGRAPHY- Daniel Txopitea (1950-1997) was an artist on an endless search, a restless explorer, his unquiet spirit powered a whole range of experiences, from painting, his main activity, to literature, design,photography, sculpture, the publications of engravings and prints and a role as cultural catalyst, as well as studies of history, ethnology, anthropology and aesthetics. Throughout his artistic career, Txopitea made a constant effort to keep the creative flame alive. Besides trawling the cultural legacy of the Basque Country, he kept in close contact with the intellectual and artistic ideas of the time. The variety of his interests is clear from the sheer range of creative phases that marked his career, phases fuelled by moments and events in his life. Reflected in his commitment to a work in progress and to his active participation in local social and cultural, the diversity Txopitea displayed calls into question the very idea of unity of style. Born in 1950 in Katxango district of Ermua, north of Spain, Txopitea freely admitted the remembered nothing about his earliest home << because when I was three the whole family moved to Eibar>>. He died in Zarauz in 1997, where he had lived since 1976. Being a self-taught artist, he soon learnt to pick and choose what he needed from the poetic and conceptual analyses of Jorge Oteiza, a favourite author from early on. After an early phase spent hovering between the Expressionism and Cubism, he embarked on a particularly profound exploration of being. On this voyage of discovery he heard anthropological echoes of the past, explored the depths of the mind and returned to begin a highly complex, almost hermetic oeuvre. Txopitea linked the hidden ferment of the medieval to the mythical roots of Basque popular culture. Against the individual unconscious of surrealism, he discovered a collective subconscious, doing so with a virtuoso technique linked to Renaissance modelling and perspective. A programme, then put together from many different parts, one that he used to produce some highly personal early work that quickly took its place in the general movement to revitalize Basque art in the 1970s. At the time his work was unsettling, capable of affecting the emotions, of suggesting and even revealing the dark folds and abysms of the mind. He also became intensely involved in artistic promotion and debate. In the early 80s he began to assume a particular vision of reality, and the more immediate experience of everyday living. He moved into a sort of trans-avand-garde in which he brought plant life to the fore, reproduced old images, became emotionally affected by nature or abandoned himself to the enjoyment of the moment. Later, he re-encountered the sediment of Renaissance representation, to approach and explore a universe charged with hieratic ritualism, existential intimacy and aesthetic nostalgia. In the later stages of his career, he embarked on a series of experiments and explorations of controversial issues out of a desire to permeate a different linguistic consciousness, executing the new works << only when I was sure that my previous line of work was exhausted>> He took refuge in art theories that would prompt him to freeze the artistic gesture or employ sand in his works or structure them geometrically. The process of thought and reflection thus continued unabated. Finally, Jorge Oteiza would be the catalyst for an analysis of the very concise, laconic geometric forms Txopitea used to illustrate some convincing art theories. In these later stages, he disassembled expression in a bid to get closer to the purity of means. << Indenpendently of the characteristic of my work, I don’t stick to abstraction as the only possible model. On the contrary, what moves me is the pure concept of creative exploration in the broadest possible range of alternatives that can be used in artistic expression of whatever kind. In my view, contemporary art is heading towards a future of futile decoration, probably pernicious for the aesthetic training of the coming generations of creative artist, something for which the present generation is inevitably responsible>> He had reached the end of a process full of interrogation and experiment. It had been a sustained, serious, conscientious and rigorous effort. Txopitea’s daughter, Ainize describes her father <<as a genuine artist, sensitive man, passionate, charismatic creative spirit, someone who continually reinvented himself>>. Absorbed in the man, Txopitea used to see himself as << a memory between the nettles where forgetfulness resides>>. But his memory endures in a technically rigorous oeuvre of precise meditation and a kind of magical mystery. A body of work in which he achieved a striking combination of imagination, knowledge and critical awareness. MEMOIR OF A GREAT ARTIST Txopitea started exhibiting when he was 20 year old and continued showing his works of art in galleries and museums from all over the world (Basque Country, Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona, Canary Island, EE.UU, France, England, Check Republic, Poland, Germany…) Since his dead is 1997, in aims of promoting his important artistic legacy, there have been more than 12 anthological exhibitions on his homage, together with the publications of book and catalogues. TO SEE DANIEL TXOPITEA'S OUVRE VISIT THE SPANISH VERSION OF THE SITE, or email: ainize@txopitea.com