PAUL YGARTUA FEATURED IN MASTERS OF TODAY | MOT numbered and SIGNED BIBLIOPHILE LIMITED EDITION BOOK SERIES

Composition, color, perspective, form. Paul Ygartua told me those were the four things he looked for when creating or evaluating art. This came in response to a question of mine about a new painting by another artist in my collection. He then went on to give a detailed academic like analysis of the canvas. Paul is not a teacher: he has been a full time painter for the last forty years. He has never taken students, but he can talk academic art with ease and insight. He is a genius. These are a few of my perspectives of that genius.

Paul paints 8 to 10 hours every day. If people are watching in a public place; like his gallery, that’s fine with him. He is supremely confident and goes about the business of creation. If someone interrupts to ask a question he is always poised, with a friendly insightful response; but he keeps painting. Ten-hour stretches are not uncommon.

I remember reading about a famous Canadian artist who couldn’t take the pressure of having to produce 18 paintings a year for his gallery; Paul is prolific and creates new works daily. He says a good artist should be able to paint fast. The great ones do. Gainsborough, like Paul, rarely went over the same brush stroke twice.
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Paul is best known to the general public in our part of the world as a muralist. Paintings 20 feet by 50 feet on the sides of public buildings. He does them free hand! No projectors, no graph grids, just give him a high lifter, a brush and paint. The ability to freely compose on such a large scale is amazing. Those who wonder what it would have been like to watch Michelangelo at work have their chance; Paul should sell tickets.  (Ygartua is a Genius | Excerpt)

Michael Silverbrooke /Collector