” Growing up in Trujillo, music and art were solid foundations of my cultural upbringing and my paintings draw from this strong Coast North Peruvian influence. As a child, I was very gifted in colours and forms and all materials of art because my father is a painter artist enrolled me. It was a very Interesting to me look at my father working in his art study at home. I spent several hours looking at him working and discovering new variety of colors from his palet . For most of my life this was the path I took: paintings exhibitions and books teaching paint. However, as I grew older, I came to realize that my concept of a real artist is freedom – and Painting did represent that to me.
One day I noticed my tulip garden and suddenly had the urge to paint it. I had never painted before but I was drawn to the colors and forms and I simply had to try. As I continued experimenting with color and form, my desire to paint became so strong that I ultimately gave up teaching and performing music to follow my heart. With painting, I have chosen my own path and in doing so, I choose the path of freedom. I express with color what I hear in my heart. By manipulating formal devices such as thick and thin paint, line and edge, distortion and rhythmic patterns, I create a feeling that allows color to define form.
My concern is not the precision of the subject I see – it is painting the feeling of what I see. The essence of each painting is the connection between the subject matter and me. When I step inside the space I am creating on canvas, I want the viewer to go there with me – to experience the openness of the moment. Expressing the truth of the present moment is what drives me to paint. The past leads each one of us to the present moment, and yet once we arrive at the present moment, the past falls away and we are left with only the positive now. As I paint, the colors, shapes and forms evolving on the canvas allow me to reach back towards my experiences as a child traveling from Coast sea to Andeans Mountains . Digging deep into a vast pool of feelings I reach out and express on canvas the paradox between reality and dream, embracing the ethereal and the mystery of the unknown.
To this expression, I continuously dedicate my time as an artist. Painting offers a passion to heal the inner soul and an even greater enthusiasm to connect with my true self.There are two things that I love most in the world – children and animals. Both are very frank and open-minded, and that’s what I love most in them. And animals can’t talk so the only way they express themselves is through emotions! I am a very emotional person myself and I want to understand the emotions of animals from the expression of their faces (and tails :)). I want to depict these emotions in a unique and non-standard way, and so I paint dogs that can fly or cows that can dance like a person. My folk art paintings are a world of fairy tales. I hope you can feel and see this world too!”
Joan Louis
