|
About the Artist JUAN ALONSO is the recipient of many awards, along with
receiving numerous public and corporate commissions. In addition, his exhibition schedule is impressive, spanning over 30 years.
From an airport in Cuba one night in 1966, on a freedom flight from Havana to Miami shortly after his 10th birthday, JUAN ALONSO left behind a grandmother, two sisters and the father on whose lap he lay until the last moment. He went to live with his aunt and uncle in Miami at the urging of his father, who said, "You will have more opportunities, a chance for a better life." Having lost his mother when he was six years old, he now was losing his tropical childhood. He would never see his father again.
JUAN ALONSO began painting botanical imagery around 1995, after discovering that his artistic inclinations had some familiar roots. His mother had been a painter of terra-cotta pots, and had employed traditional Caribbean decorative themes. His father was a craftsman who ran his own decorative ironwork business. Experiences from long ago that had been internalized were now coming to the surface. Juan began to bring out all the colors and shapes of the island. His unapologetically sensual blossoms would look more at home in a patio garden in his native Havana then his new home in Seattle, Washington.
Plants are resilient. Plants are malleable. ALONSO'S steamy hothouse filaments grow and wrap stems in union to celebrate the existence of one another. He creates sensual spirals and pregnant pods. The large formidable multi-panel paintings in exaggerated relief that ALONSO is known for have given way to a more stately flamboyance. This new body of color pencil botanical drawings loosely based on tropical flowers is a new vehicle for personal feeling and emotion. Every tendril and frond, every shoot and spiky root, every luscious leaf, is the ideal metaphor for the expression of emotional and personal resiliency.
Contact us directly at 612.332.2386 for further information about this artist.
|
|
Click here to watch a YouTube interview with the artist.
Between the Lines II
graphite and ink on clayboard
16 x 16 inches
Notes #4 | Notes #7
graphite and ink on clayboard
8 x 8 inches each
From the series Journal Notations
#13 | #9
#11 | #12
graphite and ink on clayboard
6 x 6 inches each
Rabbit Trick
acrylic on canvas
48 x 36 inches
|
