10 Questions with Josune Garcia

Josune García (b.1983) is an abstract artist based in San Sebastian. Drawing was from early childhood, her innate way of communicating. But it wasn’t until 2003, while she was studying art and design in London, that She began to capture her emotions through abstract painting. With an academic background in traditional art and an unfinished Design degree from London Metropolitan University, Josune considers herself a self-taught artist. Through years of experimentation and trial and error, she has crafted her own painting style. The one that offers her the most internal fulfillment.
She kept on painting as a hobby and focused her career on the fashion industry until 2016 when she found untenable the inner ethical conflict that arose about who she was and what she was doing for a living. In 2017 took place her first solo exhibition in San Sebastian. Since then, Josune has participated in exhibitions and fairs both nationally and internationally. Her paintings are present in private collections in many European countries, as well as in Argentina, China, the US, Mexico, Colombia, and South Korea.

www.josune-garcia.com | @inthemoodforjos.art

ARTIST STATEMENT

Josune considers art a meditative process that allows her to escape from a hyper-rational mind. She surrenders to the process letting her volatile emotions create each piece in the most savage and spontaneous way possible, vanishing any self-imposed limits and social cages that may condition her spontaneity. Through her artistic practice, Josune opens up to a dimension of mental stillness, transcendence, and dissolution with the absolute. Being her work of an introspective nature, she seeks to release energy through creative chaos to find internal harmony. Conversations on medium to large canvases that relate the existing duality within all of us, between body-mind, spirit, and matter. With a focus on gesture and movement, she prioritizes process over matter. Sometimes gentle and premeditated with a clear intention in each brushstroke, and others, marked by untamed and impulsive wrist blows. Josune’s work is characterized by the use of color, the fluidity of the spills, and the random strokes that converge in a visual dance with organic reminiscences. Games of transparencies and opacities, which are a reflection of the Lights and shadows of her own psyche.

INTERVIEW

First of all, tell our readers a little bit about you. Who are you, and how did you start experimenting with images?

I always found it very hard to answer this question. WHO ARE YOU?? My name is Josune; I live in the coastal city of San Sebastian, northern Spain. And above all, I would say I’m an aesthete and also an explorer. I find beauty everywhere, and so I like to deliver it to the world in any kind or form. I started at a very young age to express myself via images. The most vivid memories I have about my childhood are the ones spent drawing with my dad. I studied and developed traditional art skills during high school back in Spain and found the creative freedom I explore today during my London stay. 

What is your personal aim as an artist?

As an artist, I aim to connect, first, with myself as well as with the world about there. I believe there’s a calling for all of us. It’s like a higher force that screams out loud when you ignore it. I find a sense of completeness when I paint, and I encounter full presence when losing myself in the contemplation of colors and details afterward.

What is your favorite experience as an artist so far?

The process itself, as well as the feedback I receive from my clients. 

For you, painting is almost a sort of meditation that you use to escape your mind, as you mention in your statement. Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to?

I don’t normally have a plan or sketch I follow, both in palette and composition wise. I like to keep it wild and spontaneous. Each color leads me to the following. With every stroke, I intuitively jump into another. I follow my gut and listen to what my body wants to express. Since painting, for me, is a way to bring to life those worries and fears, and illusions that emerge from the subconscious and confront them, I allow myself to flow and feel while creating. The main focuses of my practice are color and movement and the rhythm that both create when interacting. 

You have a distinctive style. How did you develop this? 

I’m an explorer, and I tend to lose interest when something becomes humdrum. Once I feel that I have mastered a process, I need to upgrade and implement new materials and stimuli into my practice. During confinement, I found I needed a new motivation. Add more physicality to my studio sessions. I started avoiding my mastered pouring techniques and experimenting with loose strokes in my paintings. Today I carry on exploring this path, but I’m always open to new mediums and color themes. 

Where do you draw inspiration from for your work? Do you have any specific references?

Since I find beauty everywhere, I obtain the same amount of inspiration from anything that surrounds me. I’m so driven by human behavior, which after is translated into form and color. My paintings relate to the inner conflicts we all have. I explore sensations and psychological concepts such as power struggles, social conditioning, mind, ego, and soul matters. That’s my biggest source of inspiration. I remember the first time I studied art history, being very impressed by the freedom of American action painters such as Pollock. I also find visually appealing the feminine figures and natural references of art nouveau.

What about the colors you use? You seem to have recurring ones. Do they have any specific meaning for you? 

My palette varies depending on the mood or perhaps subconscious matters I’m digging on that particular moment. I search balance between feminine and masculine shades. Cold and warm hues and light and dark colors are reflections of my own psyche. Anyhow, I guess there’s always something happening around pink in my studio.

What do you think about the art community and market? 

Here in Spain, I found a very hermetic art community when I started, and I still do sometimes. There’s, on many occasions, a sense of competition that leads to feelings of loneliness within a career that is already quite lonely itself. It’s true that with social media, the barrier has diluted so much, and I found support in fellow artists and real gems in so many parts of the world. Regarding the art market, I would say it’s pretty much the same. Anyhow, the art market is so vast and abstract that I could not generalize about it. 

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?

For many years, and in relation to the previous question, I have run my career independently and mostly online. I have always avoided the traditional art market, almost as a way of rebelling against the system. Now I feel the need for human interaction. Analogically exhibit and explain my work on white walls and feel the energy and emotion of the people watching. I also feel an enormous urge to go large scale and intervene in streets with murals. I’m now scheduled to exhibit in upcoming art fairs, but nothing I can confirm for you just yet 

And finally, what is one piece of advice you would give to an emerging artist? 

I would say that being authentic to yourself is the best advice you can give to anyone. And keep going and committed to your practice even when things seem to not turn as you wish. I also find it very important to write about my art. My feelings, my process, and the motivation behind it. This helps so much to gain confidence when showing it to an audience.