21 May 2025 - Francisco Sanchéz - Architectural Structure - Charcoal acrylic -130 x 180 -

Read more: click on the image or the ARTSY button to discover more about the artist.

Once again, Francisco Sanchéz changes register, articulating his pictorial language around a new theme he calls Architectural Structures, projecting himself into the composition of enormous buildings, of grandiose apparently empty spaces.

Through converging lines and vanishing points - which bring strength and depth to both the work and the construction it represents - he delineates these impressive architectural arrangements.

These works portray semi-open buildings exposed to the weather, located on the seashore, that transport us to isolated, almost abandoned and mysterious places to which Francisco Sanchéz often takes us. 

Is it a subconscious need to isolate oneself from the hustle and bustle of the world around us, to meditate, that he composes these canvases of superstructures positioned in inaccessible enclaves?

A chromatic bath of grays and blacks, make up the infinite stormy skies and infinite seas, the endless horizon, the clouds and the dark and damp cement stained by continuous showers, and the puddles of rainwater. The straight and hard walls emphasize an inhospitable environment, in which the artist has introduced some tangible elements, a staircase that leads nowhere, a human figure, a painting, a sculpture placed in front of a symbol – as if it were a monument where a specific idol is venerated – that bring a strange reality to the image

These characteristics seem incongruous in these scenarios, and serve above all to measure the immensity of the infrastructures, and to provide some sort of soul with subtle touches of reds and browns, to the colossal architecture, sometimes crushing and awe-inspiring. Characters lost in a surreal dream-like world, in an attitude of contemplation or introspection, deep in their thoughts, perhaps seeking a response to their reflections or an escape to a subliminal space, that parallel with the artist’s mood.

The prevailing element, is of course the light the artist commands in a masterful way. It illuminates the image, bringing an almost palpable breeze of fresh air, filled with the pleasant smell of ozone after the rain. It enforces the cold, the loneliness, and the duress of the surroundings.

One should remember that Francisco Sanchéz is an exceptional master of mixed media, and the color grey, permeated with transparencies, that result in a soft mix of beautiful shades of silver, pearl, slate or gunmetal gray.