| PAST
SHOWS
"Javier
Lopez Barbosa"
Exhibits at Elder
Gallery in Charlotte
March 4, 2005 is the opening of an exhibition of oil paintings
by Santa Fe artist, Javier Lopez Barbosa. Elder Gallery presents
his first one-man show in the Southeast at its gallery in
Historic SouthEnd District in Charlotte.
Of
his paintings, Javier Lopez Barbosa states "I want to
leave complete interpretive license to the viewer. I may end
up seeing a figure or image after I'm finished, but it is
never a conscious decision. Bring your own emotion and see
it, experience it as only you can."
As a child in Monterrey, Mexico, Javier López Barbosa
grew up in a culture that appreciated color and celebrated
it vibrantly in fashion, cuisine, entertainment, architecture,
music, and certainly in fine art. López Barbosa has
mined that rich background for inspiration and refined it
into paintings that offer unique and fully arresting experiences
in contemporary abstract art.
Barbosa is an original painter with a unique artistic vision
and a substantial technical arsenal at his command. He maximizes
the effects of color and intrinsic light by submerging interesting
forms and textures under layers of clarity-enhancing mediums.
His formidable set of application techniques gives his paintings
a quality of exhilarating visual depth.
As
he works, Barbosa stokes his emotions by listening to the
mostly classical and operatic music he loves. "I don't
have a specific message in mind when I paint. I start with
a really good feeling but I am otherwise blank. The canvas
tells me what to do."
Barbosa
knew from a young age that his destiny was to be an artist
and also that the journey to fulfillment would not be without
obstacles. His grandmother was an opera singer, which afforded
him early exposure to music and art. Around the age of five
or six, his father asked him what he wanted to become in life
and was horrified to hear "artist" instead of "engineer."
His father never quite understood the murals young Javier
painted on the walls of his bedroom. He wanted his son to
be anything but an artist. How would he pay his bills? How
could it be better and more secure than coming to work for
his father?
At
the age of 22 Barbosa moved to San Antonio to assist his artist
brother-in-law, a job that eventually took him to Santa Fe,
where he could finally fulfill his dream.
"I
paint what I feel. When I was still struggling I remember
having lunch with a more classically trained artist who advised
me that I really needed to go to art school," the painter
recalls. By remaining self-taught, he has been able to formulate
and adhere to his own instinctual philosophy of art and to
devise his own technical procedures.
Analogies to music suggest themselves in López Barbosa's
paintings. Listening to operas and classical music while he
paints, he translates that aural experience into abstract
visual equivalents of phrasing, tempo, rhythm, and dynamics.
Javier
also has a distinguished background as a performing artist.
For six years he was lead tenor in a Spanish opera company
called La Zarzuela de Albuquerque, which fulfilled another
of this passionate artist's childhood aspirations.
The exhibition runs through March 31, 2005.
Magical
Journey
22x40
Elder
Gallery
1427 South Boulevard
Charlotte, North Carolina 28203
Phone: 704-370-6337
www.elderart.com
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