José Valencia

JOSE VALENCIA (La Rochelle, France, 1973).
"Que maja".
Acrylic on cut wood.
Certificate attached.
Measurements: 130 x 80 cm.
Painter and illustrator. José Valencia studied at the School of Arts and Crafts Llotja of Barcelona. He has held solo and group exhibitions nationally and abroad, including: BCN-ART Fira internacional d'art contemporani 2014; La Tour de Guet, Tresques, France 2013; Galerie Expo1, Montpellier 2013; Tresques Art Festival 2013; Galerie Rue privee, Montpellier 2012; CEPO Perpigan 2012; AFF N.York, AFF Los Angeles; Villa del arte Barcelona 2011, AFF London, AFF Singapore, AFF Amsterdam ; FAIM-Feria de arte Independiente de Madrid 2011; Apollo Gallery, Dublin (Ireland 2000) ... He held his first solo shows at Daliatessen in Figueres (Girona, 1999, 2002) and at Pink Gallery in Chicago (2001). His illustrations have been published in Rock deLuxe, Ajo Blanco... His is the logo of the Teatreneu Theater (Bcn). The muses painted by José Valencia transmit a hedonistic, epicurean attitude, although sometimes filtered by a certain melancholic haze. The aesthetics of advertising and poster art, pop art and a purification of geometric essence of Art Deco, are some of the formal references that the artist handles to readapt them to his plastic universe. As for his iconographic references, we appreciate explicit winks to the history of art and recurrent filmic quotations: from film noir films of the fifties to Jim Jarmusch or veiled evocations to the nouvelle vague, although the charismatic vedettes of the new wave lose their individual features to become anonymous icons on which Valencia projects his image of femininity. Enigmatic, solitary, elegant and refined ladies, with their needle heels, their pamelas and their baby bangs; but also dreamy women in need of wide spaces in which to explore their imagination.