Ouka Leele, artistic name of Bárbara Allende Gil de Biedma, was a multidisciplinary Spanish artist, famous for her photographs, a mixture of photography and painting, with a great staging and an absolutely unique style.
She was a photographer, painter, writer, poet and designer, and one of the great exponents of the Madrid Movida of the 80s, a countercultural current that emerged in the Transition, the years after the fall of Francoism in Spain.
If you don't know this artist yet, I recommend that you stay because we are going to take a walk through her work that will surely not leave you indifferent ? .
WHO IS OUKA LEELE?: BIOGRAPHY
Ouka Leele was born in Madrid in 1957. Her original name was Bárbara Allende Gil de Biedma (niece of the poet Gil de Biedma). She studied Fine Arts but abandoned it to study piano and photography at Photocentro.
In its beginnings, it was dedicated exclusively to black and white photography. Over time, his way of conceiving color was painting the copies directly with watercolors, thus combining both passions, photography and painting.
His work was published in many magazines such as Photo Magazine, Telos, Diorama, Penthouse, Reviste Actuel, etc., and he exhibited in the main cities of the world: Paris, London, Tokyo, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, Shanghai, Beijing, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Buenos Aires, Caracas, New York and a long etcetera.
He lived in cities like Madrid , Barcelona, New York or Paris; and she collaborated in almost all the editions of the ARCO festival, gave talks and workshops in cultural centers and universities, etc.
Ouka Leele was a photographer, painter, poet and even dared with the world of cinema. A multidisciplinary artist with a way of conceiving art full of freedom and beauty, she always fled from labels and conformism that having found "a style" gives us.
She died in Madrid on May 24, 2022 due to breast cancer.
WHAT DOES OUKA LEELE MEAN?
Ouka Leele, is the name of a star that he found by chance when he was looking at a picture of invented constellations by his great friend El Hortelano.
El Hortelano was a well-known contemporary painter of Ouka Leele with whom he came to share many works. You can look for his star in this firmament invented by him.
OUKA LEELE QUOTES
Artists are known for their work, but also for what they think about it and about the world around them. These are some phrases about photography by Ouka Leele that I think define a bit her personality and her way of conceiving the world:
Nobody escapes the fascination that photography produces, it is like a magic box.
You have to do what you want, what comes out every day. Your style is you.
For those wondering what camera Ouka Leele used, I think this quote has the perfect answer ? .
I advise people starting out in photography not to wait until they have a 30,000-euro camera, because now in the digital world cameras are like that and they also fall behind in a short time (...). Let them start with what they have, even with a mobile. Each device has a language and you have to learn to use it. The best school is poverty, because when you have nothing, you have to create whatever.
The artist always has to innovate, even if it counts the same. Although we have already talked about the circus, you have to talk about the circus again with another look.
Photography is not as easy as people sometimes think (…) A good photo takes a lot of time, for me it's like filming a scene from a movie.
ouka leele
AWARDS
Throughout his career, he received numerous awards, including:
- National Photography Award, 2005
- Silver medal from the Community of Madrid, 2012
- III National Photography Award Piedad Isla of the Provincial Council of Palencia, 2012
- Community of Madrid Culture Award, 2003 (photography category)
- Posthumous PHotoEspaña 2022 Honor Award
ARTWORK BY OUKA LEELE
Ouka Leele's work is always marked by color and staging. Despite the colorfulness of her photos, she did not like color photography, so she always took pictures of herself in black and white.
The author's way of approaching reality was to paint her own photographs with colorful watercolors. This treatment of color and light allowed her to get closer to the reality of the emotion that she wanted to convey through her images.
HAIR SALON SERIES
Hairdressing is one of his best-known series and one with the longest run, since he was commissioned around 300 creations for an exhibition.
OUKA LEELE SELF PORTRAIT
Self-exploration as a form of artistic expression could not be missing from the work of this artist.
Beyond being pigeonholed, she did not want to stop at finding a style that would define her, but rather continued exploring throughout her life. She painted murals, designed jewelry, and even dared to sculpture.
For her, an artist should be, above all, free.
OUKA LEELE'S LOOK
Ouka Leele's Gaze is a film by Rafael Gordonabout the creative universe of this author.
This documentary was shot over 5 years and allows us to see how the author lives, works or thinks. You can watch the trailer here:
If you want to see Ouka Leele's look , you have the documentary on Filmin.
If you prefer, you can see a brief interview that they did to him here, which summarizes the main aspects of his life and work:
WHERE TO BUY PHOTOGRAPHS OF OUKA LEELE
To buy photographs by this author, access her website, where you will find available photographs or place orders in other formats upon request in your contact email.
BOOKS
The best way to delve into the work of this prolific and unique artist is to take a look at her publications. They are not always easy books to find, but here are some:
Ouka Leele: This pocket-sized book brings us closer to the author's best-known works. It has more than 100 pages and you can buy it for €11.87.
Supernova: Compilation of his drawings, comics, notebooks and sketches, black and white and colored photographs, etc. It has more than 312 pages and you can buy it for €33.25.
Of the same substance as dreams: Based on the sample that bore the same name, in which forty photographs belonging to the first decade of the artist's work were selected: from 1977 to 1987. Most of them are black and white photos , although some portraits from the Peluquería series have also been included. It has 65 pages and you can buy it for €11.40.
Unpublished: Brings together the lesser-known photographic work of this artist through 67 photographs from her first black and white images, to digital images taken with a mobile phone, retouched in Photoshop, or the painted photograph that made her famous. It has 176 pages.
Where the light takes me: Publication that promotes the creation of a collection of unpublished works inspired by Asturias and its people.
Some 50 selected works where Ouka Leele captured the beauty and uniqueness of those lands.
It has 400 pages and costs about €34.
Without a doubt, Ouka Leele is a benchmark in the world of photography. Her personality, her unmistakable style (as much as she was not convinced by this style), made her an icon of a time like La Movida , where freedom, youth and art came together to create a generation of incomparable artists. .
