Easels, palettes of colors and brushes have taken over the workshop area this week at the Museo Universidad de Navarrawhere Antonio López and Juan José Aquerreta are teaching the 13th edition of the painting workshop Maestros de la Figuración (Masters of Figuration). In a meeting with the media this Wednesday, Lopez explained that it is "a group of painters, more or less figurative, working from natural. The workshop serves to give them confidence. They are very interesting days for them and for me, where they paint to be able to talk about painting. It is a very intense work".

In the meeting, in which he was accompanied by Aquerreta and the workshop coordinator, Inmaculada Jiménez, the artist stressed that "the painter works in great solitude and the fact of being together is encouraging. We all need the words of others because they can give us light". In this sense, he acknowledged that he has "a lot of doubts, maybe more than others", so he values these days of artistic coexistence.

This course has also broken the record of participation, with 30 painters of 8 different nationalities, ages and professions. As in previous editions, work is done from life, with a female model in the mornings and a male model in the afternoons, as well as still lifes. "Interesting things can be done from knowledge and from one's own instinct. In the workshops they emerge so unpredictably and quickly that they make me trust in painting, which is a mystery. Everyone can express their own truly extraordinary things," said Lopez.

For his part, Aquerreta emphasized that the theme of a work is "the life of a person who contemplates reality. It is not something external, but an experience that in the past was inevitably carried out on already existing images". Likewise, he defended that "art is capable of transfiguring everything, both the rigidity of a constant theme and the originality of the presence of real things, such as still lifes".

The coordinator of the workshop, which began in 2006, stressed that it is an activity that "although it is repeated every year, each edition is experienced as a miracle". Thus, she has valued that gatherings and conversations are established around art and that a special atmosphere is created: "It's nice to see students from other editions who come to visit". The current edition will continue until Friday, June 14.