Who am I?
My name is Mercedes Guillamón and I’m a painter.
I was born in Barcelona in 1961. I’ve been living in the Netherlands for over thirty years now, so I feel more Dutch than Spanish.
My passion and admiration for the art of painting started when I was very young, just a six year old girl. In third grade of elementary school I won a prize for young talents with a painting made with pastel colours. At that young age, I was already curious about different painting techniques and over the years my interest has only grown, especially my fascination for the french impressionism.
When I was twelve, I tried imitating paintings of Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Degas and Van Gogh, and at sixteen years old I began developing my own style, first with oil paint and later with aquarelle.
Between 1981 and 1987 I studied Farmacy at the Universidad Central de Barcelona. During my studies I kept painting, and in 1982 I held my first exposition in a private gallery in Barcelona. My second exposition took place in 1991, also in Barcelona.
In 1989 I got married and emigrated to the Netherlands. After the birth of my eldest son, I took a break from painting to fully focus on raising my children. During these years I spent my time, aside from parenting, working as a Spanish teacher at a secondary school in Groningen, where I live.
In 1996 I became member of the Free Academy ‘Jan Koster’ and over the course of one year, I’ve gone to Pictura in Groningen to draw / paint models.
In 2012 I became acquainted with the japanese Zen-painting technique Sumi-e (black ink on rice paper). For ten years I’ve taken lessons in the classic Sumi-e method in Groningen. In recent years I’ve started to develop my own style and since October 2022 I’ve started exhibiting my works.
Why Sumi-e?
Sumi-e is a painting technique which, in the thirteenth century, was introduced in Japan from China by zen monks. Like Zen, this painting technique reduces reality to its purest, naked form. When I begin painting, I take an empty sheet of white rice-paper in front of me, and I concentrate on it to make all other thoughts disappear until I only think of the sheet of rice-paper. Afterwards, the image comes to me that I want to entrust to the paper.
All brush strokes have to be placed on the rice-paper in one single motion. Hence the importance to have the concept of the composition clearly in mind. There is little to no room for corrections, because the pigment of the black ink, mixed with water, is immediately absorbed by the rice-paper. For this reason, it is crucial to remain fully relaxed.
Learning the brush strokes to paint bamboo or a daisy, requires a lot of repetition to increase the sensitivity of the mind. These repetitions put my mind in a state of meditation where images appear in my mind which I then entrust to the paper.
After having delved into Sumi-e and related Chinese/Japanese themes over the course of several years, I have developed my own style that sometimes deviates from the classic Sumi-e style. This is why I prefer referring to my paintings as based on the Sumi-e technique.
Now, being sixty years old, I think we should keep developing ourselves so long as we live to remain fit and healthy, both physically and mentally. In the pursuit of finding a good balance, Sumi-e helps me achieve that.