Umiko

Lulu was born into a large family of thirteen siblings. Number ten, nine girls and four boys. From her earliest childhood, she developed a great passion for painting. Her older brother, an art lover, and her mother, passionate about antiques, contributed immensely to her love and enthusiasm for the artistic world. At the age of thirteen, he travels to Italy. And it is there, where he began to truly appreciate the beauty of artworks.

His passion for antiques and painting led him to restoration, graduating in antique painting restoration and doing his internship for two years in the prestigious restoration workshop Icono I&R, where he had the pleasure of having in his hands paintings by Goya, Murillo, Ribera, Van Der Hamen, among other anonymous authors with works of singular beauty. Little by little she is discovering that ancient art is the heritage of our past and that preserving and protecting it is one of the legacies we can leave in history.

He has always been fascinated by Flemish painting, especially portraits. Painters such as Jan Van Eick, Petrus Christus, Van Der Weyden, Robert Camping… have been a great influence in the realization of her works. But she is also fascinated by the prominence that some great painters give to dogs, her great friends, highlighting them and giving them an importance as another character, as in the case of Velazquez and his Meninas.

Velazquez and his Meninas, with a mastiff portrayed as one of the family or Edouard Manet’s Head of a Bob Dog, where the dog becomes the work itself.

Her love and sensitivity for animals is something innate in Lulu. An animal rescuer since she was a child, she has been able to observe their gaze so deeply that she captures it in her portraits with surprising mastery. Her five dogs and two cats, all rescued, are her main models, but also those of friends and family.