JOSÉ MARÍA SICILIA (1954) was born in Madrid. He studied at S. Fernando School of Fine Arts between 1975 and 1979. He began to exhibit in the beginning of the 80s in Paris at the Trans-Form Gallery. In 1984 he exhibits solo in Madrid at Fernando Vijande Gallery and the next year in Lisbon. Since then he presented more than 80 exhibitions, some of them in important European, Latin-American, North-American and Asian artistic institutions. In 1987 the CAPC of Bordeaux, at the time one of the most important museums in Europe, dedicated him an important exhibition that afterwards circulated through several museums in Spain. His more recent exhibitions took place in Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, in 2005. That same year he participated in a collective exhibition at Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid called Las tres dimensiones de El Quijote – El Quijote y el Arte Contemporáneo. In 2006 he had a solo in Madrid, and another exhibition at Saint-Étienne Museum of Modern Art. Sicilia is one of the Spanish artists that reached a substantial international notoriety since the 80s, when he settled in Paris where he lives and works, dividing his time between Paris and Mallorca, where he also spends a part of the year. His work focuses on plastic relations between form and depth, from which derives a reflection on life. In this respect, vegetable and flower structures gain a particular metaphorical meaning: «I believe I have never spoken of flowers, but of painting. For me they have the same usage as a vacuum cleaner, a sardine, or a tree trunk. Because everything is nothing more than a question of shape and depth, with some winking to certain periods of Art History», he said in a relatively recent interview. Words that are in consonance with the contemplative attitude that this painting has been following, inviting the viewer to meditation and spiritual refuge conducive to dialogue with the subtleties of this art. His work is represented, among others in the following museums and collections: MoMA-Museum of Modern Art, New York Guggenheim Museum, New York Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo CAPC de Bordeaux Cincinnati Museum, USA Musée d’Art Contemporain de Toulouse IVAM, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia Colección Fundesco, Madrid Colección Banco de España, Madrid Mystetsky Arsenal Museum - Kiev, Ucrânia