Fabián Pérez

Fabián Pérez is an Argentine painter, born in 1967 in Campana, in the province of Buenos Aires, who lives and works in Los Angeles. His paintings of tango and flamenco dancers, nightclub interiors and elegant couples are some of the most widely reproduced contemporary figurative images, sold as originals and as limited-edition prints. Two of his subjects are in our catalogue: The Embrace II and The Train Station.

Life in brief

By his own account, Pérez grew up around his father's nightclubs and bars, a world of dancers, drinkers and late nights that became the core of his imagery; one club, Las Brujas, reappears in many titles. His mother encouraged him to draw. As a teenager he took up karate with the Japanese-born master Oscar Higa, who became his mentor, and at about twenty he followed Higa to Italy, where he spent several years and began to paint seriously. After a period in Japan he moved to Los Angeles, working day jobs and painting at night, until gallery owners and publishers took on his work around 2001.

Style

Pérez's pictures are built from a dark, often black ground, out of which figures emerge in warm, theatrical light: a man in a fedora with a cigarette, a woman in a red dress, a dancer's arched back. Faces are often half in shadow, and his brushwork is quick and liquid, with long highlights dragged across sleeves and hair. Many male figures are versions of himself, and his own hat and mustache recur.

The Embrace II and The Train Station

The Embrace II belongs to his series of romantic encounters: a couple pressed together, the woman's face hidden against the man's shoulder, the space around them dissolving into darkness. It is an image of trust and closeness rather than display. The Train Station takes a recurring setting of his, a platform of travelers and partings, as a stage for transition, with figures caught between departure and arrival. For a nineteenth-century take on the embrace, compare Francesco Hayez's The Kiss.

Where to see his work

Pérez's work is sold through galleries and print publishers in North America, Europe and Australia. We have not found works in public museum collections.