Just a little over a year ago, Malaga artist Eugenio Chicano was clinging to life while gravely ill with double pneumonia. He survived and has been using art as therapy to help him to recover.

'Aguatintas por seguiriyas' is a vibrant exhibition of the 30 works that he completed in just ten months, each one a reference to a time in Andalusian history. Not only is the exhibition a visual experience, thanks to modern technology provided by the University of Malaga it is also possible to hear the sounds that helped inspire each piece.

On the journey to recovery, Chicano recognised the suffering of the 'payos' (country folk) and Gypsies, in the prisons, in the forges, in the fields. "These are feelings that are tremendously human, but that have left us an important legacy," explained the artist.

Chicano touches a deep fibre within everyone with his brave and assertive paintings which make no concessions.

The exhibition also helps to heal another wound, that which was caused when the Santo Ángel church decided to hide away two of the works that Chicano had done for them.

Chicano's companion and curator of the exhibition Mariluz Reguero said, " His serious illness drove him to paint flamenco, something he has been interested in for all the 30 years that I have known him. He has been fond of it since childhood, pure flamenco, from beginning to end. I think that sitting weakly at home, without his studio and the resources of his library and his photographs, he resorted to his memories, to images that he stored deeply in his brain.

"The experience was so pure, so direct and true that he forgot the 'pop' style of his painting over the last 30 or 40 years and returned to poetic paintings. The exhibition has closed the circle of Chicano's artistic life.