An online exhibition of works by Guillermo Martin Bermejo, available to view on Artsy here.
Guillermo Martin Bermejo’s pencil drawings describe a romantic inner world populated by the creative minds that have comforted and inspired him. Some are simple portraits drawn on pages taken from old books; others develop into elaborate scenes where these characters from the canons of creative history interact with the settings and traditions of the artist’s village in the mountains north of Madrid. Their disarmingly naive quality belies the complexity of this personal realm, where fiction overlaps with reality and the narratives of famous artists interweave with Guillermo’s own life.
This new group of works brings together the different strands in Guillermo’s drawing practice: from portraits of renowned creatives such as Schubert and Henry James, to romantic renderings of unknown figures, fragile faces glimpsed or remembered, and allegorical studies of small groups of figures that reimagine creative works such as Benjamin Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ They all capture the intimate quiet that defines Guillermo’s work: a private space of contemplation where drawing serves to create a dialogue with voices from the past.
Guillermo Martin Bermejo is a Spanish artist based in the sierra de Guadarrama near to Madrid. In 2023 his portrait of WH Auden was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London, and is due to be exhibited at the gallery in room 31 from January 2025 as part of the exhibition ‘Lines of Feeling’, curated by Tanya Bentley. In 2020 Madrid’s Museum of Contemporary Art acquired a series of twelve drawings for their collection, and his solo exhibition, ‘La Pleyade de la Espana Moderna’, was held at Museo Lázaro Galdiano in Madrid in 2019 – 2020. He has also exhibited at Newchild Gallery in Antwerp (2021); Rossi Contemporary in Brussels (2021); the Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid (2018); Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga (2017); and the Fundación Santiago y Segundo Montes, Valladolid (2016). His works appear in a number of notable collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art (Conde Duque), Madrid; The Perimeter Collection, London; Koc Collection, Istanbul; Katrin Bellinger Collection, London; Museum Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid; Colección Caja Madrid; Colección Caja España (Valladolid); Biblioteca Francisco Javier Martin Abril (Valladolid); and the Spanish Embassy in Tokyo, Japan.