"Construccion" 2014, oil on canvas, 120cm x 110cm
My current work is about my re-connection with my home city, Lima, Peru, and how much it has change in the last 15 years due to the economic boom. Huge buildings are invading the city, and the traffic and chaos are inevitable. However, Lima still keeps its charm, at least to me.
"Garabato # 6", 2014, oil on canvas, 100cm x 80cm
"Red Trail", 2014, oil on canvas, 120cm x 90cm
"Duplex, flats and more!" 2014, oil on canvas,120cm x 90cm
"Enrejados" 2014, oil on canvas, 80cm x 150cm
"Enrejados" (detail)
Work in Progress, oil on canvas 120 x 90cm
Work in progress #1 (detail)
Work in progress #2
Work in progress #3
Work in progress #4
Work in Progress #5 (Diptico)
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Javier Yamakawa Born, Lima 1978 Current city: Lima, Peru Education: 2010 BFA, Drawing and Painting, California State University, Long Beach
Thank you for being one of our featured artists!!!
"Enrejados" seems to reflect Lima in a more dancing, alive state - it feels like movement, traffic maybe. I still think about Stuart Davis and the Italian Futurists when I see work like this from you. With "Construccion" and "Duplex, flats, and more!" you give the feeling of 3D renderings of a cityscape. On the other hand, you were able to capture an airiness in "Construccion" that I was not expecting in your work, I think it has to do with the overall warmth of the piece.
I think your in-progress work reflects more of the idea of a Lima in a state of re-emergence (in a state of change). I find myself attracted to the atmosphere that's emerging in these. I love being able to see the pentimenti. I don't know how you feel about letting that show through, but it's an interesting break from the more defined lines you are building. I also think the color palette is a cool shift for you - almost like a deKooning ;). When you do go in to build it up more, so that it looks more like an emerging city rather than a decaying city, don't lose the airiness in them - I think that can become an interesting challenge for you.
Mucha suerte!
Jacki
Reply
Sherwood
9/9/2014 05:27:38 am
Javier!
Thank you so much for your wonderful post. I think “Construccion” is a very successful piece. I agree with Jackie that the atmospheric quality really works with your hard edge geometry. I think that is what really interests me about the in-progress pieces that you’ve shared.
I definitely see a sense of a bustling city going through changes in these. They remind me of Mondian’s jazz series works with the kind of percussion in your repeated shapes. Red trail is really lovely; it makes me think of a construction zone at dawn before the workers begin, calm and warm. In “Duplex, flats and more!” I really enjoy the cool colored shapes jutting in from the top right; it has a sense of the sky breaking into a structure in a violent way. In your detail shot of “Enrejados” there is some interesting texture, are all of them like this? The texture seems to reveal an underlying structure that fits in with the idea of a developing city that can sometimes swallow up the evidence of the old city.
Wow. Your body of work is so diverse yet unified and so large! Thanks for being an inspiration!
I agree with Jacki and Steph, that when you have air present, it provides a welcome relief from the crowded geometry in some of your paintings. In that regards, Constuccion and Red Trail are some of the more successfull paintings to me formally, because the composition is solid geometry, yet you still manage to incorporate a sense of air and space between those shapes. I love the subject matter of Construccion, and I think your composition perfectly reflects your subject matter. The solid forms representing buildings intersecting with the “airy spaces” in all directions it does create that all over chaos. In addition, the 3 dimensional space created by the directional planes demonstrates the horizontal landscape of a city.
Garabato does have a congested composition, supporting your subject matter, but it’s the warm-cool segments of your paint that really intrigue me. I see overall red is still a dominant color in your palette, but I actually think your have a larger cool tone vocabulary. There are so many different blues! Red Trail is similar in it’s effect to Construccion, but the space feels more open and less chaotic.
I love seeing the works in progress. Your finished paintings are very mysterious to me, and those in progress paintings help understand your process. Those in progress pieces demonstrate how labor intensive these paintings must be. When I see this process, to me it implies as very thoughtful, planned, and almost meditative process. That is interesting to me because it indicates complex order, which again reinforces your subject matter of Lima’s complex transformation.
It’s so good to see your work again! ...and so much of it, way to be prolific.
I’ve got to go with the consensus on this one, I absolutely love “Construccion” and “Red Trail”. The shallow diagonals cut through the space in a very dynamic fashion, and the depth that your build up in the more ambiguous spaces in contrast with your strong solids. “Duplex, flats, and more!” comes off as a little too heavy for me. I get dragged down into that bottom left corner and get stuck there. The cooler vertical strips are very refreshing but can’t quite pull me out.
“Garbato #6” gets a bit claustrophobic for me. With it’s more organic shapes, however it is very alive, all bodies and noise. It reminds me of either pushing your way through a crowd of people, or looking down on a crowd from above. No place for the eye to rest, or the viewer to breathe.
The more solid geometric pieces that you’re showing, Enrejados and the first Work in Progress seem to embody the traffic patterns and more mechanical aspects of a developing city. I really want to be able to see more of this texture that shows up in the details however. They seem to harken back to what is happening in “Garbato #6”. I almost wonder what it would be like if you laid down a full organic texture beneath one of your rigidly geometric compositions, or vise versa.
It’s very insightful to get to see your in progress works as well. And the nebulous atmosphere that you’ve begun with really is gorgeous. The small windows into that sort of space that remain in Construccion" are one of the aspects that draw me into that piece.
It’s driving me crazy, but the atmospheric ground being punctuated by the strong geometric delineations is reminding me very strongly of a Scandinavian painter I was looking at back when I was in school. Can’t remember his name, or seem to find any of his imagery without it right now though. If I stumble over it, I’ll be sure to shoot that your direction.