ALEJANDRO NARANJO

El acercamiento a la pintura y el dibujo y a los elementos técnicos en los cuales se plantea y se fundamenta mi trabajo artístico, parten de la utilización de herramientas y medios que me son cercanos y viables en la actualidad, hablan de una búsqueda sencilla y honesta de la imagen abstraccionista y lírica sin artificios.

Que indaga en la naturaleza como objeto de estudio, técnico y conceptual, las técnicas de creación que he venido utilizando son: Oleos, carboncillos y sanginas sobre lienzo o papel, son utilizados como medio para plantear el acto creativo yendo más allá de una mera representación evidente de ella.

El óleo me ayuda en la creación de atmósferas de color y los carboncillos y sanginas me permiten la elaboración de la línea y el dibujo como elemento que crea la sensación de estructuras en la composición pictórica.

Pinto directamente sin bocetos previos o ideas demasiado preconcebidas, a manera de un ejercicio en el que cada pieza es la continuación de otra anterior, un proceso pictórico a manera de reflexión sobre el formato; acerca de la pintura y el dibujo, sobre la imagen pictórica y la búsqueda de lo lírico y expresivo, de lo escueto y fortuito en mis imágenes. Se exige mediante la técnica una capacidad de componer la pieza a la manera de un performance, a manera de improvisación en la que como en la improvisación musical se sirven de las sensaciones primarias y elementos técnicos básicos; para proponer composiciones libres y espontáneas, pero que exigen del que lo ejecuta la capacidad de dialogar con los elementos que componen el lenguaje artístico y que surgen de este perfonmance de composición creativa.

English version:

My approach to painting and drawing and the technical elements on which my artistic work is based, arises from the use of tools and materials that are currently available to me. They speak about a simple and honest search for an abstract and lyrical image without artifice that investigates nature as a conceptual and technical object of study, and the creative techniques which I have used: Oils, charcoals and red chalks on canvas or paper, are used as a means of presenting the creative act going beyond a mere evident representation. The oil helps me to create an atmosphere of colour and the charcoals and red chalks allow me to elaborate the line and drawing, creating the sensation of structures in the pictorial composition
I paint directly without any preliminary sketches or too many preconceived ideas, as a kind of exercise in which each piece is the continuation of a previous one, a pictorial process as a way of reflecting on the format; on the painting and the drawing, on the pictorial image and the search for the lyrical and the expressive, the fortuitous and the concise in my images. It requires technical skill to compose the piece as a performance, a way of improvisation in which, as in musical improvisation, primary sensations and basic technical elements are used to propose free and spontaneous compositions, the artist needs to have the skill to engage in a dialogue with the elements that compose the artistic language on my painting.

Painting as a means of expression presents questions of an artistic nature which seek to investigate what we observe and subjectively propose the creation of a personal and subjective language. From the beginning it was very important to find a way to reproduce personal and imaginative pictorial sensations in my work that, although they were inspired by real spaces outside or through memory or the completion of previous studies, were directed by the transformation of these scenes into new images, loaded with lyricism and subjectivity. This led me towards an expressionist abstraction in which physical spaces become sensations of outline, line and gesture.
At times when technical methods are better than the graphic skills of the artist’s hand, I see painting and drawing as equally valid ways of artistic expression. In my creative process I present a simple and immediate approach to pure creation, I do not force my works or add to them later. There are no preliminary sketches; I develop the creative exercise without too putting too much strain on my work which would impose too much on myself, my work or the actual act of creation.

In painting I have eventually been able to appreciate the value of the spontaneous, the authentic, the rough outline and the crude matter on the canvas.
Painting as a language, a game and way to express one’s personal technique and concept in my case presents a way of living, an event in one’s daily life, it is another way of existing, of writing, of saying things, metaphors for day and night, for the landscape from my window, for anger, violence and passion.
I try to compose pieces that link together, like moments in a melody, moments of silence or of emptiness that are interrupted minutes or days later when I take up the easel again and begin to paint as an the exercise, searching for what to say with my painting. At the beginning of my artistic search the theme of the city as a textile of images, with its threads of line and colour filled my notepad, electrical cables, architectural plans, human figures and animals appeared in a familiar landscape. And they all became fused into a more lyrical and personal way of representation, into purer elements of composition, by means of various techniques in the search for a spontaneous and personal way of painting.
At other moments in the process I needed to work with elements that

I had found such as wood, wires etc, and I incorporated them into a two-dimensional work in an attempt to engage in a mixed dialogue between painting, sculpture and found objects, in some cases on easels made of wood and on the walls of the exhibition site, between the ephemeral and the installation. I have pursued these elements with sketches in my notebooks trying to incorporate images and sensations that evoke the urban landscape of the cities of the South, with their metaphors of color and imbalance. They are full of rough images, free of pretensions of order and harmony.
In another series of works I approached pre-Colombian artistic expressions, in which I found very interesting ways of expressionism and creative and technical spontaneity. I also wanted to find in these manifestations a bond of cultural identity directed towards the consolidation of a personal artistic language. This series of works is called SOUTH, and was inspired by the mud statuettes and the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures of pre-Colombian art, combining them with references to western art, elements like Madonnas, Velasquez’ Meninas, Picasso and Botero. From this search resulted pieces in which I tried to fuse the Latin American and western identities in the search for the need of a personal language.
The completion of a series of works in small format on paper is part of the creative moment I am in, they are works of quick reflection where I have the work materials on the floor of the study (so far basically paper) and I begin to work only with a general concept of what I consider my painting should be; but with the necessity of finding composition in the lyrical abstraction of these images, which communicates to me and which presents the definitive point in which I abandon this particular piece to continue with the next one; a process in which the unfinished work becomes finished, in which creating a series as a way to work and conceive the subject composes the artistic work.
I use two techniques mainly (a diptych): oil and red chalks on canvas in the large format painting Horizon, which appears like a desolate landscape generated by an atmospheres of colour. In it appear roughly drawn anthropomorphic figures who look as if they are in flight. These creatures represent indefinite moments of the human existence, of war; the human drama of my country and the contemporary world.
My work is definitely an inner landscape, the searching glance, the sketch that invites one to watch and to be watched. It is archaic, erotic, religious and ordinary. It is the violent and poetic rhythm of nature, of the urban, of the savage, of the ephemeral and of what is symbolic and looks inwards, as if through a veil. My work is a game and a reflection, my work is writing, painting, drawing.

Alejandro Naranjo.

Curriculum.
Medellín, Octubre 20 de 1972.

Artes PlásticasEscuela Popular de Arte. Hoy Escuela Profesional de Arte – ITM.

Diseño Gràfico.

Politécnico Nacional. Medellin.


EXPOSICIONES COLECTIVAS.

• Hall Alcaldía De Medellín (1996).

• Sede Alterna Museo De Antioquia (1997).

• La Galería Del Cerro Nutibara (1998).

• Museo De Antioquia, Salón De Artistas Ciudad De Medellín (1998).

• Salón de Artistas Ganadores - Salón de Artistas Ciudad de Medellín - Hall de la Alcaldía de Medellín (1998).

• Toys, Arte para Jugar, galería de arte Centro Colombo Americano (2000).

• Primera muestra artística Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano (2001).

• Museo de arte Moderno de Medellín, nosotros también pintamos; muestra de procesos pictóricos estudiantes últimos semestres y graduados de las diferentes escuelas de arte de la ciudad de Medellín. (2002).

• galería de arte Julieta Álvarez, Nuevos Nombres Versión 2 (2003).

• Primera muestra anual del portafolio Colibrisur Art Project Ltda, 8 Pintores Contemporaneos. Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe. (2004).

• V Heartist in the Market Place. Centro Colombo Americano Medellín. (2004).

• « 9 IN THE POOL » Exposición colectiva de 9 artistas colombianos, en la galería de arte contemporaneo Casa Cuadrada, Santa Fe de Bogota. 2005.

13. Participación en la exposición Colombian Colours / Proyecto Uno. Dentro del marco del Latin America 2005 Hong Kong Festival , organizado por el GRULAC (Group of Latin América Consulates), Colibrisur Art Project Ltda y Maria Isabel Parra. En SOTA Gallery (State of the Arts), Hong Kong China . Octubre 20 a Noviembre 18 de 2005.

14. Mexico and Colombia under the Christmas tree, SOTA GALLERY. Hong Kong China. Diciembre del 2005.

15. Exposiciòn de pintura y fotografìa Latinoamericanas. Centro Cultural de la Unesco. Macau China. 2006.


EXPOSICIONES INDIVIDUALES.

Exposición Individual en La Corporación de Teatro Hora 25, dentro del Marco Del 2º- Festival de Literatura Joven del Área Metropolitana del Valle de Aburra. Organizada por Fe De Erratas, Corporación Cultural. 1999. Medellín.


DISTINCIONES.

En el Año 1997, Tercer Lugar en el Séptimo Encuentro de Artes Plásticas Ciudad de Medellín. Organizado por la Secretaría de Educación y Cultura del Municipio de Medellín.

Participó del Programa Work Study Program del Centro Colombo

Americano (1999 al 2000).

Ganador dentro del Primer Concurso “Capital semilla para la creación de nuevas microempresas” Alcaldía de Medellín. Con el Proyecto Alejo naranjo diseño (Diseño artístico Utilitario). 2004.

Otras Actividades:

Socio fundador de industria creativa y Cultural Colibrisur Art Project Ltda que se dedica a promocionar e impulsar el trabajo creativo e intelectual de los y las creadores colombianos.

COLECCIONES PARTICULARES .

Sus trabajos hacen parte de colecciones particulares en Medellín.

Paris. Corredora de arte Livia Aardenburg y colecciones privadas en esta ciudad Europea (Trabajos en papel pequeño formato).

Contactos:
www.colibrisur.com
info@colibrisur.com
alejonaranjo@colibrisur.com