Syamhope on the road to Ubrique: much more than just traveling

XII Plein Air Rapid Painting Competition of Ubrique “Pedro Lobato Hoyos” 2023

Introduction

During the last weekend, for the first time, I traveled to Ubrique, a village in Cádiz, South Spain. This village is remarkable for its leathercraft above all: infact, even though its on-site production stopped, its tradition is still ongoing and very present in the leather processing and artisanal maroquineries making. 

Moreover, Ubrique is well known as part of the “Ruta de los pueblos blancos”, a root to visit a number of Andalusian villages characterized for being completely white; also, precisely for this reason, as soon as you reach the village, it stands out on the background of the green hills surrounding it. These places usually origin from the Arabic tradition and their geographic position is related to the defense role they used to have the past.

Generally, apart its beauty, Ubrique definitely surprised me with its energy: numerous events, a lot of sport along the streets, vitality and desire to be part of the people life.

Among the activities, I specifically had two opportunities for which I’m grateful to the Association La Casa Azul, the team of professional creatives that supported me, and Remedios Rubiales Domínguez for welcoming us in her land.

In the first case, on the 1st of September, the art gallery Galería Proyecto 5 opened with a dedicatee to Pedro Lobato Hoyos, one of the reference painters in Ubrique. We remembered him thanks to María Belén Lobato, her daughter, and Remedios, the artist and owner of the gallery. Then, we inaugurated the art exhibition of Ayuna Kanatkalieva, from Russia, with a live performance with La Casa Azul.

In the second case, Saturday 2 September, I’ve decided to adventure in the XII Concurso de Pintura Rápida al Aire Libre of Ubrique “Pedro Lobato Hoyos”. This contest is one of the most important pictorical events of Ubrique where a great number of painters from the whole Spain gather together to paint the city outside. 

But… What does it mean “Rapid painting”? And what does the competition consist of?

We talk about rapid painting when, with a limit of time, we have to create an artwork from a usually blank canvas – sometimes it is permitted also to present a monochrome surface. In this specific case, we also had a limit regarding the topic since we must represent Ubrique and its cultural, human, and environmental heritage.

The result was that, among all the participants, we represented a different perspective of the village, even though the common pattern was surely the landscape. Moreover, the techniques applied were different including oil painting, acrylics, and watercolors. Besides this, one of the prized artworks was completely out of the box and was made using a collage of various materials, such as plastic and wood.

There were around 90 painters to present in the competition, and among them, I had the huge honor of seeing my artwork selected for the 17° prize of the XII Plein Air Rapid Painting Competition of Ubrique. If I think about it, it’s nice to me that this prize was sponsored by the transport company Transportes y Excavaciones Rubiales, considering my strong connection with the topic of traveling. Apart from that sponsors like them are an important source to support creation and to realize this kind of event.

To conclude, I think that the best part of it was to share this experience with other artists: it’s something that makes you really understand that exists a community of people who bet on art, even by their own manners, and art is to share. Moreover, getting to know a lot of other considerable authors is also a great source of inspiration and good energy.