Biography
Born in Buenos Aires in 1948. Between 1972 and 1974, he takes painting lessons with Luis Felipe Noé and graduates from Architecture, at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. His first individual exhibition takes place in 1976, at the Lirolay art gallery, where he exhibits a series of acrylic paintings. From this period and up to the early 80s, he exhibits periodically at Arte Múltiple art gallery.
After doing several individual exhibitions and participating in collective ones, his aesthetic ideas submerge within the early 80s’ artistic scene, a moment for the arousal of ideas towards the restoration of the painting technique.
In 1981, Cambre wins the Banco del Acuerdo contest, that awards him with a trip to New York. It is in this context that he starts getting in touch with other materials, generating an openness towards other experiences within the pictorial field. In his work, the weight of painting becomes more visible, and the lightness of colour appears as a remarkable characteristic.
In 1982 he takes part in the exhibition called “La Nueva Imagen”. After returning to Buenos Aires, in the mid-80s, he starts complementing his artistic activities with the making of sceneries or installations/mise-en-scènes, disciplines that would later on have a influence on his pictorial production. In 1989, a fundamental turn takes place in his work. He dissolves all narrative image aspects and turns to exhibit the painting itself. Afterwards, he would start using an element that would later become characteristic of his: a vessel. This object becomes a leitmotiv that allows him to work entirely with colour in the bidimensional field . It is at this point when the interest put on the colour level is emphasized, and at the same time, a deep concern about a certain lyric aspect of the painting.
In the year 2000 he does an exhibition at Klemm art gallery, in Buenos Aires, where he introduces a series of works that show another type of derivations within the pictorial field, though without moving far away from his early concerns and characteristics. Through photographs of vegetation taken over the course of many years, he does a series of paintings whose format responds to the selected photographed fragment. With small souces of light going through them, these surfaces acquire a new tonic in relation to the use of colour.
He did individual exhibitions at art galleries, museums and cultural centres in Buenos Aires, Bahía Blanca, Rosario, Caracas, San José de Costa Rica, Panamá and Milán.
In 1993 he was called to paint murals to decorate 19 branches of the former Credit Lyunnais, now called Tornquist Bank.
He participated in numerous collective exhibitions in Rosario, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Paris, Santiago de Chile and Miami.
He received, among others, the following awards: First Painting Prize, S.H.A.(1976); First Painting Prize, Manuel Belgrano Salon (1981); New York Scholarship Award, Banco del Acuerdo (1981); Artist of the Year Honourable mention, Argentina Art Critics Association (1982); Second Painting Prize “Prilidiano Pueyrredón” (1983); and First Prize “Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat” (1993).
He currently lives and works in Buenos Aires.
Vision of art
1. Choose a work that represents you, describe it in relation to its format and materiality, its relation with time and space, its style and theme; detail its production process.
The work that I choose is Yellow (Amarillo), one of the 24 colour studies shown together under the name The invisible man in the room J of the Recoleta C.C. in September of 2001.
It is a canvas of 2,40 m high by 3,60 m of base, on a stretcher.
After developing photographs of the waters of a river, taking them towards two light values, let us say white and black, I projected the chosen one onto a painted canvas dyed in pink (pantone 701 c approx.), I painted with white acrylic paint what was light or what was white in the projection until it became absolutely white, for which I needed to use an important load of material.
Once this kind of white-on-pink weave was obtained I started to paint, with a roller, thin layers of a primary yellow onto the total surface of the cloth. I continued covering the work with these very slender layers until both the pink of the “background” and the white of the “figure” became yellow, and the difference was very subtle.
Therefore this became a yellow work of big dimensions, it is perceived “yellow” and with difficulty the waves of a river or its shadow; and a certain green vibration made by the retina to balance the pink of the base. It should be exhibited with natural light or its equivalent, illuminating the room but never directing the light to the work.
From this work I started a series of works of a smaller scale; they are paintings of a hoocker green, which is composed of talo green, yellow and black, it is a gradual series, and the painting on the other end of the series is black.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
I have no “intention” of the way in which my work is read.
3. In reference to your work and your position in the national and international art fields, what tradition do you recognize yourself in? Who are your contemporary referents? What artists of previous generations are of interest to you?
The result is abstract, I think that art is abstract.
I could not make a list that says Bellini - Ellsworth Kelly - Londaibere, it would transmit nothing and would give a historical idea, or a historicist idea of art that I do not share because I find it absurd.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
I choose an exhibition of Sergio Avello in the Rojas C.C. called Avello and His Friends (Avello y sus amigos), where Sergio invited a numerous group of artists to come to the show and to install their work, producing as a result a lightening collective show.
Of the list of artists I remember: Enrique Aguirrezabala, Roberto Jacoby, Érica Hews, Alejandro de Ilzarbe, Martin Reyna, Gaby Bunader, Gabriel Grippo (these two come from “fashion”) and me. I do not remember others, but there were many more. It worked like a party because the “hanging” was the opening. It looks like a performance, but it goes conceptually beyond that. The participants ignore the operation, and the residual thing is the main reason for the exhibition. It is the inflection point between the '80s -'90s. I believe that it was in 1990 or 1991.
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
It is interesting to see that the tendency is towards liberation, in relation to the technique, the format, the media, etcetera, the above all leave aside intentionality, which I do not believe has to do with art.
