Wood, stone, iron. The raw material and the material of a sculptor.
ancestor of any architectural practice. But the architect, the sculptor and the artist do not remain alone in their element, they do not impose themselves on him, on the contrary: they enter into symbiosis with the material and they all transform into a single being, a single head, a single orí. Orí is a Yorùbá word. In the most literal sense it means calavera, but it also refers to a state of consciousness, a spirit that contains wisdom, knowledge, thoughts and emotions, a spirit that contains our destiny and our connection with the universe of all things*. El Orí Tupinambá is a unique being, the original stone head.
Stone found (and longed to be found) at the bottom of the sea. Newly immersed in this impossible dimension of an ancestral territory of a population across the entire continent. José Ignacio begins this artistic project based on reports from travelers from the 16th century, many of them who passed through these lands and who had close contact with these people. The artist drinks from this source with the pretext of establishing some new intimacy and confronting it as.
by Ticiana Lamego.
ALMIRAMAYA, 2022 - 2023
ALMIRAMAYA, 2022 - 2023
From the series Sculptures
Carving, assembling and painting (granite, wood, iron, acrylic, zinc plate and copper wire)
Dimensions: 75 H x 110 W x 30 D cm.
Unique
Son of Cuban parents, José Ignacio Suarez Solis arrived in Rio de Janeiro during his childhood, settling in Bahia in 1974. Between 1987 and 1993 he studied in the United States, initially in New York and then on the West Coast, where he graduated with a B.A. Architecture from the University of Oregon. In Copenhagen (1990) he had contact with drawing and watercolor, starting to produce journals of sketches. He participated in his first exhibition in Oregon, in 1992. His first architectural project (1991) was the residence of the country, on the escarpment of Baía de Todos os Santos. In 1994, the artist settled on a coffee farm in Chapada Diamantina where he developed the practice of drawing and painting with greater regularity. A regular at Carybé's studio, he was influenced by sculptural practice involving the use of beaten iron. As an architect, José Ignacio was a project manager in the hotel sector, carrying out several transits throughout Latin America - which allowed him to improve his research and greater circulation of his work, integrating private collections spread across the places where he dwelt. In 2004 he did an artistic residency in Helsinki, Finland, redefining the use of your palette. Reinstalled in Salvador in 2018, the artist carries intellectual concerns that lead him between the affection for continental geography and the nostalgia for a destination. His investigations into the mythological imagery of indigenous matrices poetically translate into deities painted on canvas or sculpted in wood, stone, and iron.
