Rafael angel garcía "felo"

Rafael Angel Garcia “Felo”
Rafael was born in 1928; he is a Costa Rican painter, architect, and soccer player. Garcia was one of Costa Rica's most outstanding art teachers and administrators in thelate 20th century. His work as a promoter of Costa Rican culture earned him the nickname "El adelantado". García won the 2008 Magón National Prize for Culture, the highest award that can be given to aCosta Rican artist.
After a time in England, he began his career as a professional soccer player in Cuba. There, he met the Costa Rican artist Manuel de la Cruz González and he began to show hisinterest in painting as a form of expression. In 1951 he returned to Costa Rica, he worked at the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation in addition to soccer. With Teodorico Quirós, the architectand landscape painter, he began to paint with greater dedication.
In 1954 he returned to England to continue his studies. There he found the answer to his artistic concerns in abstract expressionism,a moment in which artists channeled their feelings into works emphasizing plastic elements such as color, line, texture, and space, but not objective reality. He also formed a group called New Visionwith the intention of painting, exchanging ideas, critiquing each other, and presenting their work in different locations.
In 1956 he returned to Costa Rica, where he found a stagnant art scene. In1958 he opened the second abstract art exhibition in Costa Rica; a year later the people mocked them, saying that he did not know how to draw. Subsequently, he formed the group Ocho with other artists,promoting abstract art and performing various cultural activities to fill the existing gaps. In this 1958 exhibition he presented works related to abstract expression and matérica painting, whichused non-traditional materials such as sant, sawdust, and plaster. At the same time, he began to develop calligraphic abstraction and his own gestural "action painting," in which he explored the theme...