Pablo Ugartetxea

Pablo Ugartetxea is a Span­ish artist/surfer liv­ing in the Basque region. Inspired by surf cul­ture, his paint­ings are com­plex com­po­si­tions of mixed media that fea­ture pho­tographs, draw­ing, and paint. We caught up with Pablo to find out more.

What was it like grow­ing up in Spain?
I had quite a nor­mal child­hood. I grew up in Bil­bao, an indus­trial city in North­ern Spain where, thank­fully, you can take the tube to go surf­ing. My fam­ily is orig­i­nally from Lekeitio, a beau­ti­ful town near Mundaka where I used to enjoy myself a lot dur­ing the sum­mer, liv­ing in a big house sur­rounded by my punk cousins.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
I remem­ber my first wave per­fectly well. It was unreal to see the beach from up there. I was going so fast! I was stoked imme­di­ately. I wanted more and more!!!

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
When I was a young man, I loved comics—Tintin, Corto Maltes, Moe­bius and, of course, Wilbur Kookmeyer!

The art scene—I remem­ber when I dis­cov­ered Picasso. It was like a rev­e­la­tion, all the fun and crazy stuff you could do with a paint­brush. Rock and roll—The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Janis Joplin, the Vel­vet Under­ground, roots reg­gae. In lit­er­a­ture, I liked Her­mann Hesse, On the Road by Jack Ker­ouac. In surf­ing, I admired Tom Curren.

Of all the inter­est­ing places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?
I like the Mediter­ranean very much; I travel to Greece as much as I can. Greece is the ori­gin of West­ern cul­ture and the light there is amaz­ing. I’m in love with Cal­i­for­nia as well. It has many sim­i­lar­i­ties with Greece—the light—and also because it was the cen­ter of an ever-ruling cul­ture. I like French and Japan­ese sophis­ti­ca­tion, the color and the magic in India, the Cuban sense of humor. I don’t know … I love many dif­fer­ent places.

Where were you edu­cated?
I stud­ied at a Jesuit catholic school in Bil­bao begin­ning in 1973, when Franco’s regime was already ago­niz­ing the peo­ple. The good thing was my pas­sion for draw­ing helped me to sur­vive the extremely bor­ing classes. My name starts with a U, there­fore I always sat in the last row, out of the teacher’s visual reach, and I could escape by fill­ing my books and note­books with per­fect line­ups, sexy Cal­i­for­nia blondes and piers like the one at Hunt­ing­ton. When I fin­ished school, I stud­ied arts at the uni­ver­sity in Bil­bao, Lon­don and Amsterdam.

Tell us about your won­der­ful paint­ings. What do you hope to evoke with them?
My work mixes draw­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy, oil and tex­tures. I don’t believe in dis­ci­plines within dif­fer­ent arts and tech­niques; I like to bring real­ity out of con­text, always with a great dose of humor. Hav­ing sense of humor is the best anti­de­pres­sant and I use it compulsively.

Over the last few years, big waves have taken over my paint­ings. Now I com­bine city archi­tec­ture with tsunamis, try­ing to obtain poetic images with a strong ironic and dis­turb­ing charge. There is a latent threat in my paint­ings. You can feel the catastrophe—buildings in flames, humon­gous waves destroy­ing cities. I think this has to do with the dra­matic new mil­len­nium we’re liv­ing in: crazy weather caus­ing hur­ri­canes in Europe, the col­lapse of west­ern econ­omy, 9/11, the lat­est dread­ful earth­quakes. It all causes an apoc­a­lyp­tic atmos­phere that an artist can­not ignore. For me, a tsunami is a metaphor which invites us to think about human impact on nature and, at the same time, the impact of nature on pop­u­lated areas—for exam­ple, how nature throws the ball back with all its strength, destroy­ing our con­crete monsters.

Last year, dur­ing my exhi­bi­tion in San Sebas­t­ian on the occa­sion of this Basque city’s Surf Film Fes­tibal, I came up with the term “Surf­ban­ismo”. Surf­ban­ism means urban­iz­ing or, rather, “dis­ur­ban­iz­ing” through tsunamis, destroy­ing all those hor­ren­dous mar­itime prom­e­nades and apart­ment build­ings. In these cre­ations, or should I say “destruc­tions,” I have let the anar­chist in me flow freely and I have to admit it was quite a pleas­ant experience.

Who or what inspires you?
Archi­tec­ture, the sea, the light and the ocean. I find these sources of inspi­ra­tion trav­el­ing as much as I can and tak­ing thou­sands of shots. Back in my stu­dio, I com­pose the cities my own way. I remove and add. I assem­ble dif­fer­ent parts. I cut and paste men­tally, paint­ing imag­i­nary cities which always have the ocean in the back­ground. Through my paint­ing, I can give pri­or­ity to imag­i­na­tion, to the sub­ver­sion of real­ity, to poetry. I feel like a bil­lion­aire and almighty city mayor who trans­forms the city as he pleases.

For my last exhi­bi­tion in Bil­bao, I com­pletely reshaped my city. I replaced the stink­ing mud in the river with an epic white sand beach from Indone­sia and I chucked the iconic Rio de Janeiro moun­tain of Pao d’Açucar in the mid­dle, chang­ing the grey cos­tumes and exec­u­tive suit­cases worn by Bil­bao cit­i­zens for swim­ming suits and surfboards.

In my paint­ings for The Surf Gallery in Laguna Beach, I bring the waves from Venice Beach to the chan­nels in Venice, bay watcher cars pass through the Big Chan­nel and there’s a huge wall paint­ing of Jim Mor­ri­son on an old Venice palace. Amongst all artists who have inspired me, I would point to David Hock­ney and Andy Warhol for their cre­ativ­ity, Matisse’s color and, of course, Picasso’s genius.

What code or “golden rule” do you live by?
To be myself, to try and be true to myself.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
To focus on things you really believe in and not to waste time with bull­shit. Like André Guide once wrote, “Dogs bark, cart keeps going.”

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
No.

What are you most proud of?
I’m proud of earn­ing a liv­ing doing what I like to do most.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Surf­ing makes me con­stantly be out­doors, in touch with nature, with peo­ple who think that money and mate­r­ial things are not their pri­or­i­ties in life. And you can’t for­get it pro­vides a per­fect tan all year!!

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
When I catch a good wave or when I fin­ish a good paint­ing. In both cases, I feel extremely sat­is­fied. It’s some­thing priceless.

What is in your cur­rent quiver?
Right now, I am stoked on a cou­ple of eggs—a sin­glefin and a 2+1—and a quad, all of them around seven feet.

What is your favorite board?
A seven foot quad made by a Brazil­ian shaper who lives around here. I did the colour myself—a beau­ti­ful bluish grey. It looks won­der­ful in the water, but very dif­fi­cult to come up with when I need to repair the board! My next board will be white!!

I love to surf Les Estag­nots (Hossegor), Biar­ritz, San Onofre, Por­tu­gal and the Mediter­ranean. Last sum­mer, I caught a big swell on the island of Sardegna.

What’s your favorite meal?
I am Basque. This is a coun­try with a huge gas­tron­omy tra­di­tion, where men gather in pri­vate clubs to cook, where cook­ing is the most com­mon sub­ject to speak about, like oth­ers speak about the weather. To make it sim­ple, we’re obsessed with food in gen­eral and par­tic­u­larly fish. I love to cook and to eat, but I have to admit that despite all this Basque cui­sine tra­di­tion, my favorite food is a good hot dog!!

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Right now, I have Vio­lent Femmes, The Cure, The Rolling Stones, Tchaikovsky, David Bowie, Ella Fitzger­ald, Khaled, Beethoven, Gipsy Kings, Michael Jack­son, Talk­ing Heads, Duke Elling­ton, The Sex Pis­tols, Bob Dylan, Blondie, Lou Reed, Tequila, Ste­vie Won­der, JJ Cale, Neil Young, Tito Puente, Men At Work, Frank Sina­tra, Mano Negra, Nino Rota, Mar­vin Gaye, Camaron de la Isla, Van Mor­ri­son, Skank, Jamie Cul­lum, Peter Tosh, Mongo San­ta­maria, Django Rein­hardt, The Cree­dence, Char­lie Parker. Actu­ally, I’d like to be more up to date regard­ing music. Hav­ing taken a look at my list, I see all of them are grand­pas or they have been push­ing up daisies for awhile now.

What causes, projects or orga­ni­za­tions do you sup­port?
I col­lab­o­rate with Pre­m­anande Orphan­age Cen­tre in Ongole , India, an orphan­age cre­ated by a Hawai­ian friend, John James, a great man. Within the surf­ing scene, I have done things with Surfrider Foundation.

What are you most grate­ful for?
For being healthy, for hav­ing had the chance to meet my wife, Ana, and for hav­ing some­thing as valu­able as imag­i­na­tion to create.

What’s next for Pablo Ugartetxea?
Right now, I’m fin­ish­ing some paint­ings for the Green Room Fes­ti­val in Yoko­hama, Japan in May. Also, there is an exhi­bi­tion at the Sport­ing Casino in Hossegor and a huge 3D wall paint­ing for a surf film festival.

Find out more about Pablo Ugartetxea here.