Biography
Juan Luís Jardí
A mix of magic realism with certain influences of Pop Art and surrealism, Jardi's figures and themes illustrate the contrast is our lives and the doubts we are faced with as humans. He strives for his work to provoke feelings: nostalgia, melancholy, loneliness and a sense of uneasiness as well as feelings of euphoria and calm. Jardi's paintings offer a vintage perspective much like a trip into the past .
"Always both disquieting and attractive , the work of J.L. Jardí possesses an intense inner force; able to create a very special atmosphere, born of silence of technique, of space, of the absence of the figure even though it is often present. His characters are spectators who contemplate, while absorbed in thought, the reality that Jardí depicts. Stillness, space and
the unknown. Perhaps what Jardí is painting is the future, what will happen; he creates a scene and poses a question. What path will events take ? Diverse possibilities are offered, but fate alone will decide. For now, we have the work´s inner power, always well wrought from a technical point of view."
-Joan S. LLop, Critic of Art
Juan Luís Jardí has exhibited internationally since 1983. He has received over a dozen awards for his art, including three Medals of Honor in the annual BMW Painting Prize. His art is permeated by a sense of nostalgia, rendered beautifully, realistically, and sometimes with elements of surrealism. Jardí lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.
Curriculum
Born in Barcelona in 1961. After passing through the Tárrega Academy, he graduated in Mural Painting from the School of Applied Arts and Artistic Crafts of La Llotja (Barcelona). Since 1983, he has participated in several editions of ArteExpo (Barcelona), Arte Sevilla, Arte Santander, DeArte (Madrid) and Interart (Valencia), as well as in group shows at an international level, in the Revel galleries in New York, and Ann Nathan Art Gallery in Chicago (USA), Fredéric Got in Paris (France), and at the Affordable Art Fair in Edinburgh (Scotland), New York (USA), London (GB), Villefranche Sur Mer (France), Brussels (Belgium ), Stockholm (Sweden).
Since his personal exhibition in 1979, his presence is habitual in numerous Catalan galleries: Art Mediterra.ni, Foga 2, De Caso, Negre, Belles Arts Mima, Xarxa d'Art, Gaudí, Gir-Art, Fortuny, Foz, El Claustre, Mar, Terraferma, Arimany and El Molí de l'Escala, Agora 3, as well as in the Braulio (Castellón), Puchol (Valencia), Salduva (Zaragoza), Xerión (La Coruña) Zúccaro and Ignacio Redondo (Madrid), Wally Workman (Austin, United States), Cinq Art Gallery (Dallas, United States), Alábriga Hotel (Sant Feliu de Guixols, Girona) and "Inquietudes" Pachá el Hotel (Ibiza).
Awarded in several Youth Exhibitions of Plastic Arts in Catalonia, and in the Youth Painting contests in Melilla (1984). Circle of Fine Arts of Lérida (1985), Sant Lluc de Barcelona (1986), Villa de Palamós (Gerona, 1993), Medal of Honor of the BMW Prize for Painting (1994-97-2000), Villa de La Roda (Albacete, 2009), López Villaseñor (Ciudad Real, 2011), Valdepeñas (Ciudad Real, 2011), Virgen de Las Viñas (Ciudad Real, 2011), Focus Abengoa (Seville, 2012), Emilio Ollero (Jaén, 2014).
