It all begins with an empty canvas, where together, the spectator and I will build a story….the only story we know – ours. I will play with the perceptions people believe to be real. I will build fantasy where there was a void.

 

Throughout history, it has not been hunger or cold what has made us express ourselves, but astonishment, fright and love. With our limited and contradictory perceptions, we build absolute and universal concepts. We build a world, a notion of time, God, space and love with references to our ideas of reality.

 

Fantasy is inherent in art because nothing is real. My paintings begin with an intellectual reflection mixed with my experiences. Female figure is my first choice not only for aesthetic reasons, but because women possess a past full of memories and a future full of hopes and fears. They embody all the strength and fragility that a human being can possess.

 

My paintings attempt to say what words cannot, often by means of symbols – winged figures represent the quest for freedom, nudity denote the shedding of cultural or moral restrictions, apples are passion or knowledge, etc. Flesh and blood images emerging from line drawings, figures undergoing metamorphosis from sculpture, brick or plaster structures tumbling down, or mirrored reflections are iconography of spiritual change and self-realization. I aim to express the invisible with the aid of the visible.

 

I have been a professional artist for over 40 years. However largely self-taught, the possession and reading of an extensive library and the opportunity of having lived close to several of the world’s greatest museums have been the most comprehensive of schools, a close sight to different perspectives and an enriching insight into other cultures.

 

 

 

Juan Medina