Madrid-born César Galicia, a Forum Gallery artist since 1994, creates works that transcend reality; they are greater than life and more real than real. Drawing on the experiences he had in his years in New York as well as on his life in Spain, Galicia has developed an urban mysticism in which beauty explodes on each graffiti-covered wall and in every corner of a city that wears two words tattooed on its forehead: devastation and freedom. Galicia does not paint reality directly, instead channeling his efforts to reconstruct the appearance of things. César Galicia develops a story for each object, landscape or portrait as he paints. We see not just how he sees it, but also how we want to see it. This may be the magic of the artist as storyteller.

Spanish painter César Galicia has been a Forum Gallery Artist since 1994. Renowned for his “greater than life or more than real paintings,” César Galicia paints what is referred to as a “sensation of contemporary trompe L’oeil.” Galicia does not paint reality directly, but instead channels his efforts to reconstructing the appearance of things.

Galicia does not make use of photography. For his paintings, he focuses on traditional study of “things natural,” in which he paints his work from the inside to the outside. In effect, Galicia begins with painting a dimensional understudy covered up in the final work. This pictorial construction of subject and volume results in substance, depth, and solidity to his imagery. The effect on the viewer and the surprise of a visual reality in paint is pure César Galicia virtuosity. Galicia has taken the craft of painting to its limits – in which oil painting has become fantastic and nearly real.

The 13 paintings in this exhibition, which span the past six years, are on view until May 31.