Who I am

What motivated you to create art and become an artist (events, feelings, experiences)?

I decided when I was four years old to dedicate myself to art. I made a nude that my family censored, I wanted to understand why the movement of an arm or a leg deformed the reading and representation in the drawing, the interest and curiosity were accentuated from that moment. A feeling of rebellion perhaps a little premature, but although the drawing was erased from the blackboard, there was already an understanding of proportions and volumes that I later discovered in Egyptian art. On the other hand with a slate and chalk I had the feeling of having all the toys in the world at my disposal. Over the years the art virus became more and more present in my life, so I would not know if I have freely and consciously chosen to be an artist.

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What is your artistic training, techniques and themes you have experimented with so far?

I began studying Fine Arts in Seville, finished at the Complutense University of Madrid and took doctoral courses in Seville. I specialized in printing techniques and edition of the Original Graphic Work. I have experimented with a number of techniques and disciplines, from metal embossing, sculpture, photography, photographic and radiographic developing procedures, manufacture of special papers, book arts, computer graphics...

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What are the 3 aspects that differentiate you from other artists and make your work unique?

I guess what sets me apart from other artists is my own existence. The range is infinite and it would not be fair on my part to point out any difference with others, the vicissitudes of life guide my work and I believe that the artist's work should be a reflection of their experiences and experiences. In my case, the practice of art responds to a need. I learn from all artists and non-artists, they are all different from each other, some interest me more than others, of course, but the aspects of artistic differentiation are often the result of life circumstances or evolutionary processes outside the practice of art, although this is its reflection.

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Where does your inspiration come from?

From reading an article, a book, music (now I'm listening to Sibelius but from Renaissance songs to classical music, from folklore around the world to jazz, from symphonic rock to experimental), from the sonority of a word, from what I live in my daily life, from science, from cinema...

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What is your artistic approach? What visions, sensations or feelings do you want to evoke in the spectator?

Since I was very young, art has been my therapy. I try to have a certain kindness? Without excusing the cruelty of being confronted with a work of art with which one is going to share one's living space and which may question the observer. Attracted by beauty, I have always been aware that art has been detached from this attribute for centuries (I think of Goya's covens or the exit of a missile), balance evokes harmony of the soul, in this aspect I am closer to Chillida than to Miró. Like most of my colleagues, I look for a way to evoke a reflection on an event, a policy, a state of mind, which invites the enrichment of the individual. Beauty, composition, rhythm, harmony, contrast... are tools.

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What is the creative process of your works: spontaneous or with a long process of preparation (technique, inspiration from the classics of art or others)?

Both. A simple gesture with the brush can unleash a tsunami of ideas. To a large extent I look for a theme, a title that catches me, a word to rediscover, a conflict of assertiveness, a political disagreement... it can be an immediate response to a melody as a process of research and documentation. The inheritance of the original graphic work that requires a matrix and inverts the image as a mirror has forced a reflection and planning of a large part of my work, but I have always been attentive to the informalism of Tapies, the automatism of Luis Gordillo or the drawings I make during a telephone conversation.

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Do you use any particular working technique? If so, can you explain it?

Since I started with my first exhibitions I use indirect procedures. This implies that the work is somehow initially in a different medium than the one it is shown on. The original graphic work is made by indirect procedures. In painting a monotype can be made with a paper of no more than 90 grs. non-absorbent as a sulfated which is applied a fat or acrylic ink with drying retardant, we can make as many variations as you like in the color applied with a roller. Then this tinted paper is placed on the painting as if it were a tracing paper, the pressure of a tool or the fingers leave the traces. Personally I use this procedure with tools that I have made myself. My tools are pressure tools and the print will depend on the amount of ink on the sulphated paper. I also use acetates that I ink with a roller and it is the support of the work paper, canvas, wood, which serves as tracing paper.

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Are there any innovative aspects in your work, and can you tell us what they are?

Dr. in Art History Andrés Luque Teruel in his book "Vigencia de las vanguardias en la pintura sevillana" says: "Jesús Tejedor represents one of the most innovative and creative abstract tendencies of the moment ...". This comment referred to the work presented at the Espace Herault in Paris in which the color was the natural color of each element: wood, copper, bronze, tin, kerosene, wax, glass ... composed the works that looked sideways to Tapies and Millares. Later, kerosene and wax were present in the realization of the Gaël series, exhibited at the Galería La barbería in Seville, where the temperature control allowed me to compose on paper (before knowing the bee books of José María Sicilia). Some time later, I elaborated a series of "forests" on large format paper (of ecological discourse) with the collage technique, the reuse with the authorization of the artists who participated, allowed me to appropriate their languages and modify them to adapt them to the work proposed in the Concha Pedrosa Gallery in Seville. The use of digital prints illuminated by hand, the recycling and continuous revision of what was previously produced.

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Do you have any format or medium with which you feel more comfortable?

Yes, paper. It is a medium that adapts, it accepts all possibilities, from impasto to transparencies, from retouching or repentance, to the freshness of gesture, it can be wounded and caressed, it can be rigid and rough or flexible and soft. It can be found everywhere, it can be made by hand, and well protected it can last for centuries.

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Where do you produce your work: at home, in a shared studio or in your own studio? And in this space, how do you organize your creative work?

I currently own a small studio. My current work is a consequence of this constraint that forces me to be as accurate as possible in the choice of supports, the formal realization, the storage.

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Does your work lead you to travel to meet new collectors, to fairs or exhibitions? If so, what do you gain from this?

Some exhibitions abroad have led me to meet collectors, artists and very interesting people in political, media and editorial power. What you gain are friends, or at least a good time of interesting talks. 

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What is the theme, style or technique of your latest artistic production?

Mixed media on wood (acrylic, oil) in an abstract style (I am not sure if my work can be called abstract, although I accept the ease that the term provides). The title will be defined this time when the work is finished, the theme: Binomials.

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Can you tell us about your most important exhibition experience?

I suppose the most important was one of my first exhibitions at the Delegation of Culture of the Provincial Council of Seville in 1990, an old palace of Roman columns, where I presented my book Andalucía Sueño y Realidad, a book of high bibliophilia in original graphic work, and had a fairly consistent media coverage, it was the protocol gift of the Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Government) on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition of Seville 1992 to the presidents and ambassadors invited from many countries. It was important because it was a chain of events that led me to meet my partner.

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If you could create a famous work of art history, which one would you choose? And why?

Difficult answer to a simple question. I have been asked this type of question on many occasions: As a painter, what is your favorite color? Which is the best artist in the world? Counting me, what is your favorite painting? Sorry, I haven't finished it yet. I guess one painting I would have liked to do is "View of the garden of the Villa Medici in Rome" by Diego Velazquez. I consider it a lesson in painting, simple and effective. Or the untitled compositions by Rothko or "Arch of Hysteria" by Louis Bourgeois or "The Triumph of Death" by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

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If you could invite a famous artist (living or dead) to dinner, who would it be? How would you suggest that you spend the evening with them?

You would need Versailles to host them all! I suppose Olafur Eliasson or Ai Weiwei or Luis Gordillo or Joel-Peter Witkin or Joseph Kosuth or Pedro Cabrita Reis? Of the historical ones the list is too long. Regarding the dinner I hope he or she can invite me to a good restaurant...