Irafas, 2017

José Ignacio Suarez Solis  

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.