INTERVIEW | José Luis Ramírez
10 Questions with José Luis Ramírez
Born in July 1981, José Luis Ramírez originated in the city of Durango, Durango, Mexico. He graduated from The School of Painting, Sculpture and Crafts of the Juárez University in Durango state (EPEA-UJED).
Throughout his career he has participated in artistic projects of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts and made four murals in the native land: “Mexican Historic Landscape” in the Public Central Library “José Ignacio Caballero”, “New Earth” in the Public Central Library, “The time, the shadow and the shelter” in the Central Building of the UJED, “The Pending Rights” which stands on the walls of the local State Congress.
His artwork has been shown internationally in countries such as China, Austria, United Kingdom, Egypt, Qatar, Canada, USA and Colombia. It currently has more than 60 individual and collective exhibitions.
www.joseluisrmz.com | @joseluisramirezmx
José Luis Ramírez
ARTIST STATEMENT
“One of the characteristics of his work is a sense of freedom, so his artwork is surrounded by key characters from his daily life as a group of random characters who tell their own story but at the same time, they combine into one, creating a deconstructed social analysis that critiques our time.”
Cuca, Oil on linen, 60x60cm, 2021 © José Luis Ramírez
“In this work I seek to represent the history behind decorative elements that were part of their owner's lives. In this case, Cuca is a grandmother who's a porcelain figure collector who after her death, the only thing that remained was her collection, her becoming a part of it. Cuca leaves, but her porcelain stays as a memory of her.”
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INTERVIEW
José, welcome again to Al-Tiba9 magazine. Please tell those who are discovering you today who you are and when you first decided to become an artist?
I'm José Luis Ramírez, born and raised in Durango, Durango, Mexico. I decided to become an artist when I won a national award, that's when I felt a responsibility not to abandon this profession that I have been polishing day by day.
What is your favorite experience as an artist so far?
The 2019 Cairo Biennale was a great experience, living in another culture, sharing talks and opinions with people around the world.
El dueño de la casa (The owner of the house), Oil on linen, 160x110 cm, 2021 © José Luis Ramírez
“The owner of the house is a work where his narrative consists in using characters within the composition to create a stage of dreaming, becoming a painting of pure onirism. All the elements talk to each other creating their own language, they are integrated in their right place, adhered to the performances, which makes it contemporary in the eyes of the viewer.”
El destino (the destiny), Oil on linen, 150x100 cm, 2020 © José Luis Ramírez
“In this artwork I seek to recreate spaces that are constantly in my life. This artwork talks about the discovery of the world during childhood. Here lies the treatment of my style: fragmentary, evoking memories of a deconstructed past with drawings that look childish, but which at the same time is the insatiable search for a primary spirit, mixed with extremely realistic objects.”
Your paintings are inhabited by several different characters. Who are these people? Are they real people you encountered in your life or imaginary characters?
Many are imaginary, and others are real that I meet on the streets that I walk, but most are imaginary.
What are the main themes behind your work?
I am proposing a different way of looking at painting from an aesthetic sense. I try to make my work very funny, cynical, disturbing and keep it from losing that childish spirit.
Your paintings are very peculiar and recognizable. How do you differentiate your work from the rest? In other words, what do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own?
In each work that I do, I put disturbing characters outside the composition above all else. I am very fascinated by realism or the figurative theme that, in my modest opinion, I consider achieving quite acceptable. However, when defining a work, I believe that what is well done is what ends up making noise or disturbing me. Then that's where I give way to fun, to the gesture that questions the uncomfortable element, the context, or speech that does not have to have the solemn seriousness that most of the works have today. Each one of my works is a story or a tale where someone who truly exists or is present lives or is present.
La tía solterona (The single aunt), Oil on linen, 198x164 cm, 2020 © José Luis Ramírez
“A meeting of different elements ranging from popular culture to classic and children. The single aunt is narrative painting through her composition, a party where a woman from high society lives and celebrates the death of a woman, in a house where she lived and in which more living characters coexist with the memory of a woman.”
From inspiration to the final result, what is your creative process like?
I never plan a work, nor do I like to make sketches. I work with a lot of presence of a human figure, but I like to make juxtapositions, perhaps that is what gives the touch to my work, the scratch, to cover the work completely, add a person with the head of a cow, I use that language when I tell the work. My work is done minute by minute. I drink water and go back and put a dog and create a story with everything I did, not the other way around. I think that nowadays painting has to be done at the moment; sometimes, there are too many things in my head that I wouldn't be able to translate them into a sketch.
What are your thoughts on digital presentations, like online art fairs and exhibitions, for artists? Do you think these are good opportunities, or do you just wish to go back to life as it was before the pandemic?
I think they're good; they help many others so that their work reaches a more wide public, but physically you have the possibility of sharing talks with other artists who live in another reality, and I am much more interested in the opinion of the people who walk, those who enter the museums of society. That's more important and not so much the collectors.
La tía risueña (The laughing aunt), Oil on canvas, 20x20 cm, 2021 © José Luis Ramírez
“This picture emerges from a series of portraits of solitary people. The Risking Aunt is a single woman who lives with her thoughts; these represent them as children’s drawings, which cause this aunt´s laughter. I like to use this dynamic in the construction of my paintings: as if reality were tangible in a hyperrealistic element and their memories were manifested with childish strokes, as if past life were placed in a discontinuous framework containing it and presented in this accommodating form.”
What does "being creative" mean to you?
Have the ability to adapt to the present, consider everything that is happening around you daily, make a problem a challenge, something uncomfortable to see, give you visual gratitude, try to convert. I think it is important to have that ability.
What are your plans for the upcoming months? Any exhibition or project you are particularly looking forward to?
Yes, I have a few exciting invitations for a couple of great events in Europe and also just keep painting, like always.
Finally, who’s José Luis Ramírez in three words?
Discipline, emotion, and surprise.