04.05.2015 19:43:21

18.04.23 01:49 PM

Juan Medina was born in Mexico City in 1950.

Medina is an artist who works on a grand scale. His paintings have been exhibited throughout Mexico and the Unites States, including in such cities as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and New Orleans.

One is immediately struck by the extraordinary three-dimensional effect Medina achieves in his paintings. His use of trompe l’oeil is startling as architectural elements seem to project from the picture plane. Placed in these seemingly concrete settings are figures that appear at once to be of the flesh and of the spirit. Medina’s imagery stems from the subconscious and raises questions about pour perceptions of spatial and chronological reality.

His winged figures suggest a quality of existence found in the “artistic a spirit”, a spirit desirous to free itself from material concerns of day-to–day existence. The winged figure is the embodiment of the individual wanting to serve as deeper, more intangible need inside himself; that of his creativity and imagination.

In his paintings, Medina takes preconceived ideas of reality and turns them inside out; much like Alice experienced through the looking glass. He utilizes numerous references to artistic and architectural styles throughout history. These elements, in juxtaposition with contemporary models raise issues of the relativity of time. He also creates doubt in perception of spatial reality as figures seem to break through the composition's borders and occupy another dimension.