Overview

His painting is movement, an unmistakable icon of the cultural revolution that was born in the Spanish capital in those wonderful 80s: Chenel, Tierno, 'Madriz', music and comics, the night and life.

Possessing a very personal and recognisable voice and a splendid mastery of drawing and colour, Javier de Juan became one of the most present and active artists in the field of drawing and painting in the eighties. In the early 1980s he began his artistic career as a painter and illustrator, at that time very much imbricated in the assumptions of the so-called New Spanish Figuration, made up of a series of very diverse artists, but at the same time with some common features - fundamentally a high figurative, colourist and narrative temperature.

His studies at the School of Architecture were to leave an unquestionable mark on his works, largely centred on urban themes, reflecting different aspects of the city, its buildings and streets, its dynamism, and above all the different archetypes and human genealogies that inhabit and populate his compositions.
 
Over the years, although his aesthetic, stylistic and expressive interests have logically evolved, being always very interested in the dissemination of his images through serial work, and even for some time now in the use of new languages and creative strategies, including video and digital processes, the fact is that a series of formal and conceptual features exist and are maintained in him that define and give meaning to his own voice as an artist.

Javier de Juan is above all a splendid draughtsman with an innate ability to tell stories through images. His technique is fresh, agile, clear and simple. With few lines and graphics he is capable of constructing scenes, situations, moments and, of course, emotions. His characters, men and women, are always recognisable and are animated by a special liveliness, full of energy, registers, movements and also sensuality.

Despite the fact that in his pieces the line and the graphics have their own voice that can be heard clearly, the truth is that Javier is an artist who manages to make the chromatic registers also present their candidature as important elements in his work. Colours with a marked warm texture, oranges, yellows, reds, which in turn are tempered and modulated with other shades closer to the cold kingdom of blues and greens.

He is an artist whose imaginary is nourished and supplied to a large extent by the fauna and flora that populate the diverse and variegated environment of the city. The streets, the cars, the passers-by, the illuminated signs, the buildings form a dynamic totuum revolutum and compose before our eyes an active and energetic urban song.

An artist who generates narratives and visual stories full of inventiveness and winks can never be without the warp and weft of the imaginative. Images yes, but undoubtedly images that are the offspring of his fertile imagination.
Biography

Spanish artist, an outstanding figure in relation to the plastic image of the Madrid movida (movida madrileña) and the new figuration of the eighties in Spain.

He abandoned his architecture studies for his interest in the plastic arts. His intention was to visually show the transformations that were taking place in the urban environment of the Spanish capital which he published in the mythical magazine Madriz from 1984 onwards and in other publications of the time, such as La Luna, Madrid Me Mata, Sur Exprés and El Canto de la Crew. He also developed poster design through Editorial Port Said, of which he was the founder.

 

His work is marked by the influence of the German design of the 1930s, the American art of the 1950s and graffiti. In 1987 he published his first graphic novel Sic Transit o la muerte de Olivares (Transit or the Death of Olivares), which was a milestone in Spain. In 1989 he moved to New York, the influence of which can be seen in his pictorial works, in which the dynamism of the forms is increased. At that time he also began to work with etching, and in 1990 he settled in Sóller. Mallorca, where he developed a more reflective and intimate work. In 1994 he moved to Balsicas, Murcia, to a non-urban environment, which is reflected in his publication Un exilio mediopensionista (A Half-Pensioner Exile), with extracts from notes, thoughts, drawings and stories. Back in Madrid, his production expanded to new media, such as digital new media, and digital collages, with a mural at Barajas airport entitled El Viaje (The Journey). At the turn of the century he continued to experiment with new media in installations such as Los Paraísos Artificiales (Artificial Paradises); and works in video, film and 3D animation such as La Ciudad Invisible in Tabacalera or Mientras Tanto in Colón for Marca Madrid, in which he returns to the urban theme but now focusing on capturing movement as a plastic and descriptive element. as a plastic and descriptive element.

In 1985 he had his first individual exhibition at the Galería Ynguanzo in Madrid; Later he was linked to the Galería Moriarty and the Galería Max Estrella in Madrid.

De Juan has also shown his work individually in centres such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla (1987) with an itinerant exhibition in Geneva, Valencia and Barcelona; his first retrospective in Casal Solleric (Palma, 2003); and another anthological exhibition dedicated to his graphic work at the Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo (Marbella, Málaga, 2010). In 1995 he was awarded the National Engraving Prize by the Calcografía Nacional.

Works
Video
Exhibitions
Press
  • Javier de Juan - Escrituras

    Sur Deutsche
Publications

Public collections:

Museo ABC, Madrid /Museo Insular de La Palma / Geneve Hotel de Ville Collection, Switzerland. /Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain / Lindner Foundation, Dusseldorf, Germany / Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Conde Duque, Madrid, Spain / Museo del Grabado. Marbella, Málaga, Spain / Fundación Telefónica, Spain /Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain / Banco de España, Madrid, Spain / Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain  /Fundación Argentaria, Madrid, Spain / Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain  / Fundación Tabacalera, Madrid, Spain / Euroforum, El Escorial, Madrid, Spain / Calcografía Nacional, Madrid, Spain / Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain / Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain / Fundación Aena, Madrid, Spain / Ayuntamiento de Los Llanos de Aridane, La Palma, Spain

Art Fairs