CERCLE 5

even if I am only looking at her sitting peacefully. It is somewhat iconic and shows me the true way of things. It does me a lot of good. Do you have anything really important left to do? I would like to continue with what I’m doing, not as something new, but as an extension of what I have always been doing. It is apparently the same, but it always has something incorporated into it, although even I don’t look for it. You've got very far with your profession and whatever you say will serve as a reference for many. What would you say to the younger ones? Above all, for them to choose their leaders well, so that they do not go wrong we did, because that has terrible, unpredictable consequences. Of everything that has been said about you, what is the best thing you ever heard about yourself? Well, without a doubt what my friends have said to me, because it comes from the heart. I remember many of the things they told me throughout my life... (he thinks). One day I showed my friend Paco 1 a couple of can- vases with portraits of a pair of couples that I had done when I was about 19, when I was doing military service and staying at a boarding house. He looked at them and told me that they had ‘brains and dreams'. He meant to say that those faces harboured a certain magic behind their somewhat menacing appearance. I understand his language well. He knew that I could build up to something really good. CONTEMPORANI - CONTEMPORÁNEO CONTEMPORARY From your point of view, what is your most important contribution to the world of art? Well, I think that above other considerations, the really essential thing for me is painting: the very fact of painting. I mean in terms of what you can do with colours, something that relates to abstraction. That is what has most value. It is a natural abstraction. Fighting to get a specific grey together with a pink, or a special black, and that struggle to fine-tune the tone and bring them together in a harmonic way to create a form of emotion with all of that, it’s a wonderful thing. Putting in the effort to get that mystery of tone and colour. You're mo- ving by instinct, searching, until the painting emerges. Apart from the city, the street, the streetlights, something which is related to the pain- ting arises, and that seems to me to be basic. There are many people who do things of enormous value for others in kinds of areas. I've seen it in Tomelloso. Anonymous, sometimes ba- dly-paid people who did their job very well, with patience and good will. This practise has been etched onto me. I have not been a peaceful man, while Mari has been by nature. Paco Lopez was also a peaceful person. There are people who are peaceful and those who are troubled. I may seem peaceful, but I'm not. I don't have any peace, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. There are people with a tremendous amount of instinct and people wit- hout none at all. For me is what is instinctive is very important. I try to listen to my inner voice, which is sometimes faint; with the din of the world, it’s difficult to hear it. Antonio López en una simpàtica fotografia després de recollir la Medalla d'or del RCAB, entre una assistent a l'acte i Graciela Nischang, coordinadora i secretària de Presidència (a la dreta). Antonio López en una simpática fotografía tras recoger la Medalla de oro del RCAB, entre una asistente al acto y Graciela Nischang, coordinadora y secretaria de Presidencia (a la derecha). Antonio López in a charming photo after receiving the RCAB Gold Medal with a ceremony attendee (to the left) and Graciela Nischang, coordinator and presidencial secretary (right side). Foto/Photo Antonia Jiménez. © RCAB 1 Francisco López (1932-2017), sculptor belonging to the Madrid school of sculpture.