I have met Fabian Perez twice, every inch the famous artist, the atmosphere buzzes when he enters the Gallery. His followers gaze in awe, afraid to approach as, with his Mediterranean good looks, dress sense and charming smile, he commands the room with his presence.
I wont say what my first thoughts were when he entered to the applause of the selected guests but put it this way, he would be the kind of man that I would see across a crowded bar and avoid like the plague. Which is exactly what I did at his first private view that I attended. His work sells for thousands and at both views, the pieces were gone within minutes.
'Man Lighting A Cigarette'
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The subject matter of his work I struggle with, as Fabian was raised in the bars and brothels of his Father in Buenos Aires and it is the images that his young eyes saw that inspire his paintings. So I wanted to see what the fuss was all about and it was the paintings I focused my attention on until Fabian introduced himself to my son and I.
I couldn't have been more wrong in my appraisal of him as he was a quiet, genuine man who quite openly told me that he had no formal training and that he struggled with his work sometimes like the rest of us.
Despite realising that I was infact one of those annoying artist people and not a potential customer, he took the time to explain the picture above to my son, who loved it and talked to me about how I could progress my work further.He told us how the women he loved to paint the most was his pregnant wife and that he had carried several of the artworks to the Gallery himself as he had just finished them.
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'Cynzia II'
Meeting him taught me a lesson. It would be so easy to loose the person that you are once you begin to be admired for your work. It would be easy to get caught up in the fame and forget that it is all about the work. Fabian's Paintings are rich and vibrant, glamorous and seductive and that is the image he gives when he steps into the limelight but behind the mask is a man who is very passionate about his work and I suspect if the glory were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't alter his course an inch.
'Tess IV'
