Alejandro García Restrepo La historia del dolor, pencil on paper, 2016
Colombian artist Alejandro García Restrepo’s drawings possess a darkly intriguing gravity. Many of Alejandro’s images are based on psychology and psychoanalysis texts. The artist and seeks to respond to “the relation between body and soul as two indissoluble essences.”
Forging sculptural worlds from pencil and paper, this is the work of an intellectual whose interest in philosophy, psychology, and religion is evident. Yet, the artist also has the ability to commune with his own intimate spirit through the creative process. This way of working allows a construction of dream like terrains, capsules of time, populated with eerie beings, all emerging through an organic almost automatic process.
“Drawing technique is not inside my pencil, it is in my brain, and it flows through my entire body to my fingers. The act of drawing is an expression of my being.”
Alejandro García Restrepo La historia del dolor, pencil on paper, 2016 (detail)
Alejandro’s impressive oeuvre is extensive, reminding me of the treasures found in a rich folio from an antiquarian library, inflected with early modernist satire, Surrealist peculiarities, and the marks of Psychoanalysis, as well as ornately Catholic pictorial language. One of the most remarkable series is La historia del dolor about the interrelated themes of body and soul, life and death, violence and rootlessness, illness and spirituality.
Alejandro García Restrepo La historia del dolor, La efigie derrotada, pencil on paper, 2016
Alejandro García Restrepo La historia del dolor, La efigie derrotada, detail, pencil on paper, 2016
Alejandro García Restrepo Cantante y otras anatomías imaginaries, pencil on paper, 2014
The series Cantante y otras anatomías imaginaries also has certain link to Surrealist automatism or the practice of “exquisite corpse.” The artist shares more about this connection.
Alejandro: “I have always had great affinity with Surrealism; however, I have never read the Surrealist Manifesto. My interest in Surrealism has more to do with a certain way of contemplating the world, and developing my ideas through my drawings. Anatomías imaginarias explores the possibility of new anatomies in the combination of characteristics of multiple beings; it is a game where I have fun imagining a woman who becomes a bird, or a bird that dresses like a woman.”
Alejandro García Restrepo Cantante y otras anatomías imaginaries, pencil on paper, 2014
Alejandro’s ability to render naturalist form, carving living breathing creatures from mere paper and pencil seems almost magical, the academic drawing infused with the curiosity of his interest in the external word, a love of observation, he says:” I feel a great fascination with animals, the designs on their bodies, their camouflage strategies, and their behavior in general.”
When asked about his vision, Alejandro said very simply: “Art is a dialogue with the world and means to speak to the world. My work is the result of my dialogue with nature.”
Alejandro García Restrepo El público estático, la historia del dolor, 2014
Alejandro also uses Surrealist devices of disjunctive time, hybrid creatures, images of pain, flight and unlikely pairings to respond to the conflict in Colombia in works like Victimas y Victimarios, belonging to the La historia del dolor series.
That art should possess the power to disturb, make us remember, and wonder is a great thing, an act of courage and unveiling.
Alejandro García Restrepo Las bestias y la corriente, la historia del dolor, 2014
Alejandro García Restrepo Victimas y Victimarios, la historia del dolor, 2014
More of the artist’s work may be viewed here
