Colour, beauty and creativity are part of the DNA of the Canary Islands, a dimension you can’t miss on your next holiday.
The Canary Islands are a unique territory. Its insular nature gives its inhabitants and its culture a unique personality which, throughout history, has been influenced by the many peoples who have passed through its coasts.
This has had a direct impact on local art, which has been nourished by very diverse cultural legacies (from different parts of the peninsula, but also Portuguese, French, Italian, Flemish and even English) which, in some cases, never even reached the mainland. Among all of them, the particular relationship that the Canary Islands have had with America plays a particularly important role.
This has made Canarian art unique, which is why no visit to the archipelago would be complete without spending some time getting to know this legacy, its current production and the particular personality of its artists. Hence the importance of the art of Baobab Suites *****, the hotel located in Costa Adeje, Tenerife South, which has always been characterised by offering its clients a different, profound and exclusive experience.
Art at Baobab Suites *****
Apart from being able to receive all kinds of information related to local art and the museums and art galleries scattered all over the island from the hotel staff, guests can enjoy an exhibition room in the lobby where local and international artists show their work.
It is an open space for art lovers, as the openings are open to the general public, and for artists, which allows them to grow within the local and international scene.
For example, in recent months it has been possible to enjoy the work of three unique and particularly interesting artists from Tenerife, who have managed to give a clear idea of the state of the island’s art scene.
A turn of the screw, by Valentín Díaz Lemus
Born in the town of Icod de los Vinos, Díaz Lemus began his career in painting, and has always stood out for a particular vision in which the real and the unreal intermingle between imaginary faces and gazes.
The newest aspect of his work, however, is his passion for sculpture. After passing through various stages, he now opts for pieces made up of thousands of welded washers that give life to fantastic human forms, in which the interplay between light and shadow forms a fundamental part.
Acróbata, by Oscar Deluis
Oscar Deluis has metalwork in his heart. Even as a child he was curious about the metalwork workshop that his father had in his hometown, Icod de los Vinos, Tenerife, and which he inherited from him.
In 2018 he started making works in metal with the idea of expressing his feelings and experiences. “To be honest and fair, what drives me to create my art is the search for union in whatever state you want to understand it: social, work, family, material… In all its forms,” he acknowledges. “That’s what drives me, from a positive point of view and with the elasticity that every kind of relationship needs”.
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“In Baobab Suites I exhibited Acróbata, a selection of pieces in iron and steel that illustrate the first phase of my career as an artist, with works made between 2019 and 2021,” he recalls. “A journey through the different territories of exploration and inspiration of my work, which combines my passion for sculpture with sculptural paintings, painting and drawing.”
Deluis’ works reflect balance, strength and simplicity, with abstract geometric forms, showing a tension between the strong and the delicate, but always in a positive state.
“The exhibition at Baobab has allowed me to give my work international visibility, so I am very satisfied,” he explains.
Bosque de islarios, Cuerpos de islas and Eden en llamas, works by Carmen Cólogan
Born in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, and with a solid artistic training, the painter and art teacher Carmen Cólogan describes her work as follows: “All my work is based on the concept of the island; it is between the geographical island and the inner island that I conceive a perceptible model of insularity. Space is always bounded by light, which comes from the outside to the inside – or vice versa – through doors or interstices that lead to the sea of the unknown. The images in my work are metaphors for the time and space that take place in the ultraperiphery, and their unreal imagery reflects on a territory (whether tree or island) that not only deciphers the enigma of insularity, but also proposes to humanise, equalise and universalise the strange world of the remote islands”.
At Baobab Suites, the artist presented a sample of her work comprising Bosque de islarios, a seven-metre long oil on wood mural of exotic trees from different distant and unknown islands. Also a painting from his series Bodies of Islands, in which trees from Macaronesia are drawn. On this occasion he presented a work with acacias and a red pigment background. Finally, two pieces from his recent work, Eden in flames, where the tree trunks rise towards the light.
Carmen Cologán (Photo: Somos Estudio).
“Exhibiting at Baobab Suites brought me closer to the tourist world, which always tends to value the sea and the sun of our island but not so much the art that is generated here,” says the artist. “It was a very gratifying experience because it gave me the opportunity to experiment and take my work to other spaces and to different spectators. Expanding frontiers and limitations is always positive”.
As these three examples make clear, Baobab Suites is not only an ideal place to stay on a visit to the island of Tenerife, but it does more than that: it is committed to promoting local art, which is an original and different way of enjoying a unique territory.
