PAINTERS OF THE PORT SERIES. Self-defined as a "self-taught painter", Nicolás Gómez is a great portraitist who combines colour, light, facial expressiveness and fine attention to detail.
Nicolas Gomez (50) defines himself as a “self-taught painter”. He was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and began his career in 1996, manufacturing stretchers and frames for painters. From that experience, he took up the challenge of starting to paint. met Hilario Alvarez, an oil painting teacher (“A great portrait artist, possibly the greatest in Mexico,” recalls Nicolás), who began to give him painting classes.
Supporting himself by reading books, and going to museums a lot, the disciple completed a training that would lead him to a master's degree in the art of oil painting.
25 years after his first works with canvas, Nicolás Gómez has a remarkable record of artistic production: he decorated 66 Riu hotels, painted 52 murals for Italiannis restaurants, and has 32 individual exhibitions in different parts of the world. He exhibited in the US in Pleno (Texas) and in Laguna and La Joya (California), in Panama and in different parts of Mexico.
His paintings cultivate both the abstract style and realism. His greatest production focuses on still lifes, landscapes, marine themes and the human figure. Her forte is undoubtedly portraits. In these works an admirable definition is contemplated, which combines color, luminosity, facial expressiveness and a fine attention to detail.
"Portrait is the most difficult subject there is, and the challenge is to make people look real, alive, to reach a deeper realism, hyperrealism," defines the painter. It is inspired by the mastery of William Bougarough, Jean León Jerome and Antonio de Fabres, his most admired artists.
Nicolás Gómez exhibits throughout the year in dante gallery (Basilio Badillo 269, Puerto Vallarta), where he can be seen painting in the morning. He also teaches classes and is writing a painting book: “How to go from apprentice to master in oil painting”.
“It is an easy and simple book to learn. It is a compilation of 25 years of practice, where I have also taken ideas from other books”, he comments.
"Nico", as his friends call him, lives in Puerto Vallarta from October to April, and the rest of the year in Guadalajara, with his wife Juana Sanchez and two daughters. The younger Alison (16) is studying to be a chef, and the older Cindy (23) is an excellent cartoonist who already helps her father in his abundant production of canvases.
It is that, although the offer of technically reproduced images is a constant threat to the activity, Nicolás Gómez considers that "culture will never cease to be, and art will always remain in force".
How do I contact Nicolás Gómez?