We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jorge Navarro a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jorge, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I cannot pinpoint an exact moment when I wanted to become an artist. Rather, it was influenced by my family context, personal interests, and a constant quest to think about and reconfigure the world that has always been present in me since I can remember.

I grew up in Mexico City, in one of the most troubled and marginalized areas: Iztapalapa. My father always encouraged me to learn and fostered in me a love for reading. Many of my childhood memories involve my dad telling me many stories about Greek mythology; I believe that through those stories, I learned that fiction is a very powerful tool for interpreting reality.

Although I was always interested in scientific subjects more related to mathematics or physics, I think my first approaches to art came through contact with some friends and acquaintances in high school. I had a group of friends with whom I shared many experiences. We were the typical teenagers who wanted to be apart from the rest of the people and who took refuge in philosophy, music, and art. I think it was at that moment that I considered dedicating myself to an activity linked to sensitivity a good possibility, which is why I enrolled in the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas at UNAM. However, my decision was very cautious, and I enrolled in the Design career, thinking it was a better decision regarding job opportunities once I completed my studies.

Jorge, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In art school, my interests leaned towards electronic media: video, installation, and digital graphics. It was a very enriching stage since I even had to learn about very technical topics related to programming, software, and hardware. This type of practice is very successful when you have the means and tools necessary to carry it out, but when you don’t have them, you suffer a lot when it comes to executing the proposals. I remember that in several collective exhibitions, I was the last to install my work in the exhibition hall due to the complexity of my proposal. I had many satisfactions, but also many moments of frustration.

Once, while I was struggling with the electrical connections of a gallery, a colleague arrived with his pictorial work, hung it up, and left the room very satisfied. At that moment, I realized that I was spending too much energy on technical aspects and neglecting the content and conceptual depth of the work. This is how I began to lean towards simpler practices that allow me to focus more on the concept and depth of the work. This is how I decided to embrace drawing and painting. It is no coincidence to me that the practice of painting has remained relevant for several centuries.

I consider painting as an experience of knowledge, through which I have been able to explore and generate discourses associated with identity and its relationship with the face, psychoanalysis, mythological imagery, and subjectivity. More than a result, painting is an act and a process. Thinking this way has allowed me to satisfy my intellectual interests and try to generate a stance or a statement about the world.

I consider that the visible result of my work represents only a small part of the whole. Behind each work or series, there are conceptual and argumentative approaches that I seek to express through the pictorial exercise. That is why I like to structure my artistic production in series or themes.

On the other hand, the material aspect of the pictorial has allowed me to experiment with textures and impastos very characteristic of oil painting. I believe this has given a very particular style to my work. Many times, I am interested in showing that the drawing and painting aspect can be found in any element of reality, and for that reason, I use wires and other three-dimensional elements to incorporate them into the pictorial plane.

For me, the dichotomy generated by my work is very important; on one hand, its aspect is very gestural, chaotic, and energetic, very close to expressionism; but on the other hand, it has a lot of reflection and structure. Embracing these two dimensions, the expressive and the intellectual, is what I seek in each of my works.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The decision to study Design instead of Art was due to the fear of not being able to enter the job market once I finished my studies. I couldn’t imagine that one could live off art, at least not under the conditions I found myself in at that time. So, I started my involvement in the context of museums and galleries, but not in the role of an artist, rather in the role of museography and design applied to art exhibitions. This work is very satisfying, especially because it provides the essential conditions for presenting an artistic discourse in a space, but given my interests and creative drive, I felt I was on the wrong side and needed to continue my personal artistic projects, at least in the background.

This led me to a phase where I produced less regularly. My motivations were to try to win an economic incentive in some art call or be selected for a collective exhibition. And obviously, I was rejected in most of these calls. The perspective I had didn’t let me see that artistic work is built not only with intention but also with the production of work and continuous effort.

Another important factor was added to these circumstances: some changes in my personal life.

Despite these adverse situations, I decided to give structure to what I was doing in an improvised way. I moved to a smaller city but one with a relevant artistic and cultural environment, allowing me to set up my own studio. I changed many habits that kept me away from real discipline. I have learned that structured and well-focused habits generate very satisfying results. For the past six years, my production has been very significant, not because I have been in notable exhibitions or won any awards, but because I am aware that my way of relating to and establishing a stance towards the world is through art.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Yes, there is a particular goal. Many of the ideas that have guided my path come from literature. I believe that reaching knowledge doesn’t have to be a direct path; often, the most genuine ideas come through rhetorical and metaphorical routes. One of my favorite writers is Milan Kundera, who, through his narrative, advocates for an aversion to seriousness. For this author, humor and play are fundamental values for engaging with the world. That’s why I believe more in possibilities than in established truths; no stance has enough relevance to be taken seriously. With these premises, the possibilities to play with ideas and arguments are endless because what matters is not the results but the play itself. My goal is to enrich the infinite realm of possibility through my works.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.jorgenavarro.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jorgenavarro.studio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JorgeNavarro.studio

Image Credits

Ángel Rueda
Saribel Lara