The artist Agustín Ibarrola already had a long artistic career and political and social commitment when in 1982 he began to paint the trees of a forest near his hamlet, near Gernika. It was an experimentation exercise that sought to transgress three-dimensionality. The project acquired greater dimension and ended up becoming his most emblematic work: the Oma Forest. The natural look of the canvas used by Ibarrola, however, endangered his own work. The trees became sick and, four years after their closure, an exquisite “migration” has allowed their survival.
If Eduardo Chillida dreamed of a place, Chillida Leku, where his sculptures could “rest” and “people would walk among them as if through a forest,” Agustín Ibarrola had the dream of turning nature itself into the fundamental support of one of his plays. José Ibarrola, plastic artist and son of the author, sees in this intervention the opportunity to continue that dream: “There was a certain danger that the work would disappear. Memory is fragile and could have been lost. The dream that his memory lasts and is perpetuated has come true.”
José Ibarrola has been one of those in charge of monitoring the migration process of the work, since his father, 93 years old, is not in a position to do so. The starting point was an analysis of the future of the Oma Forest that began in 2018, months before it closed for security reasons. Several specimens, affected by brown band disease, fell, forcing the work to be rethought. The Provincial Council of Bizkaia brought together a dozen experts, linked to the university or the Fine Arts museums of Bilbao and Guggenheim, and the option was chosen to move the work, remaking it based on rigorous criteria at an artistic or environmental level.
The final result has satisfied the Ibarrola family, who consider that it “very faithfully” reflects the spirit of Agustín Ibarrola. In fact, the work has completed some groups that had disappeared as a result of logging or that the author himself had not managed to complete. The new Oma Forest aims to be a reflection of the work that Ibarrola dreamed of, beyond the limitations in terms of dimensions or felling that limited the original project. “It more faithfully recognizes the original idea,” they pointed out from the Provincial Council.
Fernando Bazeta, doctor in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), has led the multidisciplinary group that has been in charge of the artistic transfer of the work. It speaks of a “pioneer” process, based on “innovative” and “rigorously scientific” criteria, a procedure that has required, in summary, selecting a new, “more sustainable” location, in the same valley, reviewing abundant artistic documentation on the work and the author himself, and, finally, transfer the artistic groups drawn by Agustín Ibarrola, painting them on other trees and adapting them to a new terrain.
The Oma Forest, which opens to the public this Saturday, is made up of 34 artistic groups reflected in nearly 800 trees, compared to almost 500 in the previous one, within a space of 12 hectares (it is three times larger).
Ibarrola’s will to transgress three-dimensionality, playing with the different planes of depth, is one of the constants of the Oma Forest, where his artistic groups draw human figures, straight and curved lines or intense colors. The artist, who intervened in the trees for two decades, plays with the visitor’s perspective and makes him participate in a work that transmits disparate sensations. The visitor feels, at times, observed by nature itself, as in the Los Ojos complex. Meanwhile, in the most colorful areas the beauty of the place is overwhelming.
The forest also offers a synthesis of Ibarrola’s artistic and vital career. The set The Nuclear Threat, conceived in the 80s, shows a committed and visceral Ibarrola, “angry” at the possibility that nuclear power plants would take over the Basque Coast. The Forest Animals group, on the other hand, offers an endearing image of Ibarrola and responds to a personal anecdote about him. His grandson, Naiel, told him that he painted “very boring things,” and Agustín Ibarrola responded by drawing the animals that populated the forest on the trees themselves.
The tour to the Oma Forest concludes with La rúbrica de Mariluz, dedicated to his wife, who helped him paint the forest, and with “I love you,” also dedicated to the visitors and, probably, to nature itself.
