INTERVIEW • ART
Alfredo Sabat
"I paint failed gods"
By SPREADABLE MAGAZINE
Alfredo Sabat (Montevideo). "Cartoonist. Painter. Cartoonist. Journalist. Graphic designer. Animator. Sometimes musician. And several etceteras more”. This is how it is defined. He lives in Buenos Aires and his illustrations have been published every day in the newspaper La Nación for 20 years. Alfredo tells us about journalistic work as an illustrator and the concepts of his latest series of oil paintings, based on Greek myths.
In your experience, what is the key to illustrating in a newspaper?
There is something that flies over everything: journalistic work. Have an idea. By occupying a space within the newspaper, more than illustrating or accompanying a text, the main function of the illustrator, cartoonist, cartoonist, is information. You are communicating news or an opinion.
How are you organizing during social isolation?
Now I work from home. Actually, temporarily from my mother's house, in Olivos.
Has your work dynamic changed for the newspaper La Nación?
All the graphic works for the newspaper, sooner or later, end up in digital format. When I am in the newsroom, due to the rhythms of the newspaper, I make a pencil sketch, by hand. And then I complete with a tablet, and I add color at the end.
Are you developing a personal project?
I am painting in oil inspired by Greek myths. They are powerful gods who are missing something. Failed Gods. For example, the god Zeus falls in love with a mortal: he has desire.
Do you always work in series?
I like to work with a theme, narratively. As a boy I had a book on Greek mythology that I really liked. Then, I saw how the great masters of Art History messed with the Greek myths: Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Goya… I said, well, it's a way of learning from the greats. I brought a kit of materials and I'm working in the studio that belonged to my old man (Hermenegildo Sábat), here in Olivos.
How do you choose the myths?
15 years ago I had already worked on this topic, but now I have chosen myths that could be feminist. I use models that could be from the 19th century. In “Ulysses and the Sirens”, the three swimmers, wearing bathing suits from that era, are defeating Ulysses. In “Circe”, the woman is transforming men into pigs with her wand. And in “Venus and Mars”, a woman from 1910, with thigh-high stockings and a camisole, stars in a scene like an erotic postcard, together with the German soldier. Love defeats war.
Visit
https://www.instagram.com/alfredosabat
Photos: courtesy.
MAY / 2020.
