Concrete composition 20, 2021

Juan Jose Hoyos Quiles  

Artist Statement:

Juan Jose Hoyos Quiles was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended The School of Visual Arts in NYC from 1979 to 1982 where he studied under Elizabeth Murray, Keith Sonnier, Raphael Ferrer, Nachume Miller, and Lucio Pozzi. From 1982 to 1983 Juan shared an artist's loft with a fellow student, Colombian artist Luis Stand. The loft was above The Kenkeleba House located at 214 East Second Street in the East Village. The directors, Corrine Jennings and artist Joe Overstreet established the studios and gallery for Black, Latino, and woman emerging artists. After participating in several group shows, Juan increasingly found it difficult to remain a full-time artist. Therefore in order to make a living, Juan worked for several decades in business management for several large companies in law, accounting, and telecommunications. During this period Juan continued making art but did not exhibit. Finally freed from money constraints in 2011 with early retirement, he is now dedicated to painting full time. Moving to Tampa, Florida in 2014 and now living and working in Clearwater, Florida since 2016.

Juan is an abstract, geometric, hard-edge painter. His paintings are fueled by his love of abstraction. The practice of making them has involved experimenting with many schools of art and diverse art movements from the early 1900s to the present. His work has been evolving and transforming over a number of years and has fluctuated back and forth among different ideas, all of them in the abstract model. During this period of discovery, he started a series named Concrete Composition.

The term Concrete Art was first used by the Dutch artist and designer Theo Van Doesburg (1883-1931) and refers to art that is non-objective and is also called geometric abstraction. Although Juan does not adhere to one style, all of his paintings adhere to the visual codes of Concrete Art, such as flat blocks of color, straight lines, hard edges, the grid, and patterns.

He experiments with color juxtaposition, space, and rhythm often influenced by background music ranging from the jazz singer Billie Holiday to contemporary jazz piano, disco, and even House dance music. Although a mature artist, his spirit is young. He relates to painting as if it were a dance, trying to understand new steps between color and geometry. There are never any hints of gestures or marks. The paintings are distilled, austere, elegant, and jewel-like. He sometimes employs what he calls zips of contrasting colors, to "activate" space.

He works intuitively and never works from drawings or studies. One painting influences the other. He puts one color down and the next color is a response to the next. If it doesn't work, the paint is scraped down and is overpainted but he never reveals any traces. His work is firmly planted in the Minimalist, Reductive, Geometric, and Hard Edge Schools of painting.

His painting technique involves a mixture of acrylic paint, matte medium, and gesso on canvas, paper, or wood, giving his work a matte flat finish similar to gouache paint and creates the great depth of color that he prefers. He then finishes the work with a coat of satin varnish which transforms the matte colors to a brilliant color vibrancy.

His intentions are to force a new dialogue inherent to abstraction that started in the early 1900s and continues to be relevant to this day. He hopes that when a viewer sees his work, they get a feeling of simplicity, harmony, order, and rhythm.

Artists that have influenced his work are Imi Knoebel, David Novros, Ellsworth Kelly, Carmen Herrera, Blinky Palermo, Robert Mangold, Oli Sihvonen, and Ann Edholm.

His work is in many private collections in the U.S. and Europe. 

Education:

Art Students League, NYC
School of Visual Arts, NYC

Awards & Distinctions:

Publication
Variations, A Group Show
New York: Caidoz, 1983. First Edition. Slim quarto, stapled. Photocopied, zine-style publication made in conjunction with a show at the Caidoz Gallery held from May 7th through May 27th at two locations at 226 East 3rd Street and 41 East Houston Street in New York. Consists of 25 pages, each created by a different artist including Paul Thek, Arleen Schloss, Tzvi Ben-Aretz, No Grupo, Julius Valiunas, Mike Cockrill, Red Spot, Juan Hoyos, Jean Dupuy, Robert Montoya, Luis Stand, Roger Welch, Jeff Way, Judith Gutierrez, and others. 

Award
Honorable Mention
Summer Camp For Masterpieces, 2017
Stirling Art Gallery, Dunedin, FL
 

Exhibitions:

SVA Gallery, NYC
2 Person Exhibit with Luis Stand, 1980

SVA Gallery, Tribeca, NYC
Printmakers, 1981

Kenkeleba House Gallery, NYC
The Black & White Show, 1983
Curated by Lorraine O'Grady
Corrine Jennings, Director

Caidoz Gallery, NYC
Variations, A Group Show, 1983

Art In America
Internet Exhibit, 2015
Curated by Julie Torres

HUE Gallery of Contemporary Art, Wichita, KS
Inspire/Chapter Two, 2016
Curated by Sean Christopher Ward and Lindy Duquid Wiese

Summer Camp For Masterpieces, 2017
Stirling Art Gallery, Dunedin, FL

SUPERFINE!
A Hyper-Curated, Contemporary Art Fair
Frieze Week, May 2018, NYC

"Zip, Bang, Pop! Run! It's The Cops!: Contemporary Pop Art and It's Influence On Street Art" National Invitational Exhibition, 2018
Hue Gallery of Contemporary Art
Wichita, KS

Art and Architects, 2019
Gallery AIA
Tampa, Fl

Artistic Influences:

Theo Van Doesburg, Lucio Pozzi, Ellsworth Kelly, Ann Edholm, Carolina Herrera, Juan Bay, Alan Uglow, Malevich, Raul Lozza, Barnett Newman, Brice Marden, Blinky Palermo