Why go
At Oma, moving your own body helps assemble an image across separate trees. Knowing that Ibarrola worked with abstract form as well as socially engaged art helps explain that choice. His career gives the forest a place within Basque art, beyond its appeal as a colourful walk.
The full story
Born in Basauri, Ibarrola studied in Madrid with support from Biscay and Bilbao before moving to Paris in 1955. In 1957 he joined Equipo 57, a group associated with geometric and constructivist experimentation. That interest in relationships between shapes offers a useful way into Oma: individual painted trunks belong to compositions that depend on where the viewer stands. His career also carried a strong political dimension. Communist activism led to imprisonment in Burgos, and his work addressed the experience of ordinary workers. Later, his opposition to ETA and association with the civic movement ¡Basta Ya! brought threats. These commitments belong to the history of the artist; they do not describe the forest’s present access conditions. Oma extended painting into a living landscape. His Cubes of Memory at the port of Llanes took colour onto another large outdoor surface. Together, these projects show how he moved beyond the canvas while keeping the viewer’s encounter with form central to the work.