SILKE: THE ACTRESS WHO PAINTS

With two films about to come out and a personal project that will keep her away from cinema until at least the middle of next year, Silke has inaugurated her second individual exposition in Santa Eulalia, “Entre chicas y elefantes” (between girls and elephants), a continuation of the previous one, which marked her public debut as a painter, exactly one year ago, in Ibiza, where she has lived for years and from where, she assures us, it gets harder and harder to move away.

She’s played guitar and piano, she’s done ballet, she makes movies, she designs and, what’s more, she paints stupendously.  “I’ve always felt a strong need to express myself through the arts”.

 “Dance, music, painting are different forms to interpret or express what I feel inside.  I’ve been painting since I was little but let’s say that seriously in the last 3 or 4 years”.

She mainly paints women who could be an extension of herself.  “I like to look inside myself for the characters I represent, in the end you always express your own way of being”.

Candidly sensual women, with an element of shyness and exoticism and a naïve beauty which are developed in every day actions: in the bath, at the dressing table or in the pleasure of a solitary cigarette.

Realism close to illustration and animated aesthetics in oils which give form to a style “which you may or may not like but which I think is very individual”.

An admirer of, amongst others, Gustav Klimt and the Mexican Remedios Varo, this multitalented and intrepid 33 year old Madrid girl was one of the star actresses in our country in the 90s.

The launch of three successful films in only 5 months (Tierra, Hola ¿estás sola? and Tengo una casa) made her one of the most popular faces in Spanish cinema.  Julio Medem had a lot to do with that.

Nowadays she takes it all more calmly (“generational recycling is necessary”), and she flees from fame, avoiding excessive promotion and putting her time into perfecting her dexterity with the brushes.

 “I learned to paint with the Parramón books, I bought them all.  And I’ve still got a lot to learn”.

Entre chicas y elefantes can be visited until this next 27th July in the afternoon timetable of the Property and Art gallery, in Santa Eulalia, just after crossing the bridge on the left, in calle San Vicente nº 1.