Juan Bautista Nieto was born in Seville (Spain) in 1963.
There he pursued his childhood
studies and guided by his father (doctor in medicine) was encouraged
from a very early age to become a doctor. However, everyday on his way
to school he passed a professional painter's studio and through the
window observed the artist at work. Thus began his secret fascination
for painting and drawing which he suppressed because of the family's
pressure to follow his father's profession.
He studied at the Faculty of Medicine in Seville where as part of his
tutorial programme he came into daily contact with inert and anonymous
bodies. In later years this was to prove a formative influence on his
understanding and appreciation of the human anatomy.
On the death of his father, Nieto made a milestone decision giving up
medicine in favour of his secret passion for painting and drawing. In
earnest he began to draw and paint initially studying privately on his
own but then embarked on a series of studies at the Fine Arts Faculty of
Seville.
His work presents an exaggerated
obsession with recreating a reality which reaches beyond the precise
representation of a photograph. He transcends the theme and concept of
hyperrealism using it as a vehicle to take us onto another level wherein
he achieves an extraordinary kind of intensity which paradoxically
creates a distinct feeling of unreality.
His technique is equally obsessive and both demanding and exhaustive.
Every facet of his subject is depicted with a minute and impersonal
exactitude of detail. His materials are oil and acrylic combined to
build an accumulation of delicate and continuous layers of shades and
multiple tones of light, shadows and density
In common with other hyperrealist painters he produces very few
paintings each year. His large works take between six to nine months to
complete. With some justification Nieto is regarded within Spanish Art
circles as one of the foremost exponents of hyperrealism in Spain today.
