Marisa Marimón
Art Gallery

We are immersed in a society where the immediacy and speed of events mark our vital rhythms, assaulted by thousands of fleeting images that are superimposed on one another, connected by networks that isolate and condition us. We live in an age where the new and ephemeral replaces the old and enduring, where putting down roots is outdated in the midst of such haste. With no time for boredom, no time for contemplation, everything happens fast, too fast.

Jose Quintanilla’s photographs transport us to that stillness that is absent in almost everything around us. Observing the course of time in Nature, which repeats its unstoppable, tenacious, persistent life cycles until it recovers territories taken away in a constant struggle against the human footprint, covering the heart and the memory of things with weeds before the passive gaze of abandonment and neglect.

The transition between the beautiful as an expression of the spiritual and the sinister, present in the form of absence, invites the observer to reflect on that which is not there but complements and sustains the sublime as aesthetic enjoyment. Emotionally charged images that connect us directly with our origins, the longing for a landscape that disappears in the midst of a fast-paced society that leaves little time for contemplation.

A profound reflection on rural Spain, the towns and villages that are emptying, the countryside that is bleeding away in an unstoppable exodus towards the city. A tribute to the memory of our parents and grandparents condemned to painful oblivion. To those who are not part of history but who built it with effort, sweat and tears.

This exhibition presents a series of photographs taken over the last few years in Spain, France and Portugal. Black and white film has been used for the shots and the copies have been made by the author using a digital chemical process developed by himself, emulating the finish of old photographic techniques.

Jose Quintanilla was born in Yecla (Murcia). After attending the School of Technical Architecture, he studied Art Direction at the CEV in Madrid. For more than 20 years he worked in marketing and advertising acquiring a wide experience in photography, image editing and graphic arts. In 2007 he opened Taller Digigráfico in Madrid, a laboratory specialising in artistic photography, where he works for artists such as Pablo Genovés, Bleda y Rosa and Paula Anta. He is a member of the prestigious international network of Hahnemühle-certified laboratories.

Master PHotoEspaña 20/21 in Photography. Theory and artistic projects.

Self-taught as a photographer, he has attended numerous workshops with photographers and artists. He also develops an important activity as a teacher giving courses and workshops at festivals and photography schools such as EFTI, Master PHotoESPAÑA and La Máquina.

His work as an author focuses on landscape photography understood as the relationship between man and the territory that surrounds him, the space between the human and nature, the frontier between reason and chaos. Memory, recollections, the search between beauty and absence.