Eider Zabaleta – A View from Euskera

 Eider is a talented artist in many ways, often working with her brother Gorka. They sing together and share an artistic life. Her drawings are confident and revealing pieces that draw their life force from a unbreakable love of the Basque region. In many places of the world it seems that distinctive cultures are vanishing but this is not true in the Basque Country. Here people speak in perhaps the oldest language in Europe, Euskera. Basque people are ethnically different. And they have a easy link with distant forefathers that is rarely seen elsewhere. They are a sea-going people situated at the south of the Bay of Biscay and the sea – it’s pleasures and horrors – pervades their world-view. It is within this reality that Eider does her work as she captures moments in everyday life. There is a simplicity that seems at odds with the pace and the of-the-moment feel of modern life. Patience is a virtue; discipline something to be admired and truthfulness is an expected currency of everyday interaction. It is from this world that Eider’s work emerges and their ageless quality says much about the timeless values.