Juan Mejia
"My sculptures furnish valuable elements of minimalist connotation. On the emphasis of securing a compositional balance, we find the limits of the pictorial language and the architectonic design."
Born in Colombia in 1965. Juan Mejia studied architecture between 1983 and 1988 and graduated from the UPB in his hometown of Medellin. His career thrives on countless trips and influences. The Colombian artist has studied in places like Vienna in Austria, notilbly studying both museology and architecture in Rotterdam. In addition to their international cultural background, Juan Ricardo's works share a close relationship with architecture, his career, which deepens their relationship with forms, geometry and the city.
Juan Mejía's work occupies an interesting terrain between intention and form. Always starkly minimal, but notably absent of the coldness that typifies the genre to some, Mejía's pieces reflect his training as an architect in their playful approach to form and space.
Mejia has worked in many mediums, from Sintra, a plasticine material from which he carves his recognizable "Signos" series, to rusted bronze, emblematic of his series of folded sculptures entitled "Origami".
"My sculptures furnish valuable elements of minimalist connotation. On the emphasis of securing a compositional balance, we find the limits of the pictorial language and the architectonic design. After the research in "Origami", with the totems and folded pieces in iron, utilizing paper in "Light Boxes" first and a sheet of poly vinyl in "Subtle Spaces", cuts and folds are implemented to cause alternating light and shadow effects, defining immaterial spaces that are always marked by the rigour of order and geometry.
These pieces are polymorphic structures which are originated from intentional lines, accents, rhythms and games of full and empty spaces on the original flat surface. They then become three-dimensional sculptural objects of grand finesse."
