THE LINE  – A DIALECTIC ELEMENT OF THE NATURAL AND THE ORGANIC.
SUSANNA ALLENDE | ARTICULATE #17 | OCT 2018​

Gonzalo Martin (1992) aka Taquen is a Spanish visual artist and illustrator, dedicated to mural painting for more than 8 years. Born in A Coruña but based in Madrid. Much of his work, often minimalist style, revolves around the natural and organic, in the dialectic between these elements and the landscape, using the line as main element.

Taquen started painting graffiti at the age of 13, which marked his life and future. He graduated from the fine art department of Complutense University of Madrid is since then dedicating himself professionally to the creation of painting murals. 

Even if he chose a hard and difficult road, he has never doubted his choices. Taquen, who is in an early stage of his career, is generating his creative drive from the wish to develop his lines and strokes.
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Taquen started developing his own style, when he finished his studies – a style he’s still improving, adding new elements and conceptualizing new ideas. He uses the line as a differential element and generator of multiple depths, always in search for the correct anatomy of the elements applied and adding them color, when he finds it necessary. At times he is also using different techniques such as watercolor, leaving a unique impression. 

In his work, Taquen is interested in the natural, in knowledge and in learning through personal experience and movement, in the understanding of it as being a process of change and growth. Taquen always use natural elements and lately started introducing non-human living elements to his work, such as plants and animals. 

It’s very important to him to consider the surrounding environment, to know the origin of things (and people) and to be grateful for this exact source of life. To Taquen, humanity has forgotten their origin, which is one of the main sources of the problems and failures humanity is facing. Humanity believing to be the center of the universe, is to Taquen an arrogant position, who imposes human species to be of great insignificance on the level of Jane Bennett, who also imposes human species to be a flow of living processes, rather than a solid subjective unit (Bennett, 2010).

Taquen, who’s main source of inspiration is emerging from nature, adds:

​“Finally, I confess that mountains are also part of my everyday life, and I cannot understand who I am today if I do not mention it”.

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​The interview expands the article on Taquen, featured in  magazine ARTICULATE #17.
Check out the full release here below.