Samples

Just a short post to mention an exciting book that arrived today; in 2013 during my first visit to the Venice Biennale I discovered the work of Columbian born artist, José Antonio Suárez Londoño. The work consisted of hundreds of tiny drawings/paintings on paper laid out in glass cases in the centre of the ‘Encyclopaedic Palace’. I fell in love with these quiet, captivating and imaginative drawings admiring their sometimes referential and other times surreal-looking or ‘automatic’ subconsciously derived imagery. They were an inspiration for my own ‘drawing-a-day’ projects and continue to be motivational for my sketchbooks which I still produce but seldom show. I have often written about the 'need' to draw and mind-set induced by the commitment to drawing regularly. They are personal items of use, obsession and need so I have never felt that they need to be subject to the self-conscious inducing scrutiny or rationale of an audience or gallery, however I have shown some and subsequently am grateful that Londoño’s work has been shown in the public domain and embraces an outsider art sense of integrity, to be just what they are (but by all means makes them no less brilliant), drawings in notebooks.

 

“José Antonio Suárez Londoño revives the profession of artist as a reflection of his time, his surroundings, his personal experience and that of the moment in which he lives.”   

I have been in search of a book of his work for the last four years (they are as hard to come by as it is to repeatedly have to type his name into search engines) and the more I learn about him the more interesting he becomes [For example, I have just discovered he illustrated a book of poetry by Patti Smith]. The book is a retrospective catalogue of his works that were shown in 2015 in Spain Columbia and France. Once I have read the book I will perhaps post more info on here but for now wanted to introduce to more people the work of this exciting artist.    

"Since the 1970s José Antonio Suárez Londoño has expressed himself through drawing, in the form of his prints, his numerous notebooks and rubber stamps. The intense focus and emphasis on a single medium has allowed the artist to create a coherent body of work, which has become an undoubted reference point for the new generations of artists now championing drawing as an essential tool within their artistic activities. Suárez Londoño’s constant, daily endeavours are revealed through an oeuvre that represents a type of inventory of the world, a diary that almost obsessively describes his situation and concerns...an artist for whom drawing is a way to present the viewer with new micro-universes, encouraging us to construct our own narrative."

To View an Online Book of Suárez Londoño’s Works Click Here

Images and Text Sourced from: José Antonio Suárez Londoño: Samples, (2015) This Side Up, Madrid.