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About Bobby Madrigal

Bobby Madrigal is a pseudonym. It's used to help me free myself and feel less self-conscious and to grow in confidence as a semi-”outsider” in the art world with a distance for observation in my practice.

 

The name is important. Almost the only books I visually read as a young adult was the Tales of the City series, by Armastead Maupin. The central character is Mrs Madrigal. At the time of reading it in the early 90’s I was reflecting on my own family and the deep feeling of lack of a nurtured upbringing. The character represented in Maupins books is an unconditional caring woman which the other characters chose as their own matriarch. A ‘logical’ rather than biological one!    As a grown woman, now, I would love to be even just a bit  ‘Madrigal’!

 

In 2019, art teaching and illustration had stopped due to the pandemic, it was time for a challenge and a radical shift away from old work. The pseudonym began and I undertook intense study of oil paint techniques and absorbed influences of symbolism in Dutch still life by painters such as Abraham van Beijeren, Christoffel van den Berghe and Vermeer, and interiors with women by the late 1800’s Danish painters Vilhelm Hammashoi and Peter Ilstead.

 

Education

Art Foundation Diploma
3D Design Jewellery HND
Fashion Textiles OND

 

Exhibitions

Brighton Hippodrome, Do Not Obstruct Gallery. Brighton 2022

Gurtrude.com - ongoing

Fishing Quarter Gallery,Solo Show. Brighton 2021

Tebbs Contemporary. Spitalfields, London, 2021

Open House Brighton. 2015, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2021
Onca Gallery Brighton, 2012