After months of discussion, It is a pleasure to display this interview with the talented artist, Jordi Alos. Throughout this interview, Jordi speaks with Gotham Art News about events within his artistry that have made him the mentally focused and art-driven artist he is today. He walks us through how he has come to embellish his style of art defined as “Art Brut” while discussing strategies that toggle how he chooses to project his talent onto canvas. Throughout his career, he displayed at many galleries with positive results; recently it seems Jordi hasn’t been able to obtain his art back from a gallery for over a year.
Can you tell us about your journey into the world of art? How did you transition from studying advertising and design to becoming a full-fledged artist?
From an early age I had an interest in art, specifically painting and drawing. I can credit certain family members, for this love of art specifically my grandfather. When I was an advertising and marketing student, I realized that my sensitivity was greater than what a career in advertising could give me. That’s when I knew I needed to paint, it became a necessity. I started working day and night, “knocking on doors” like a door-to-door salesman would. The street became my showroom and social networks gave me the “jump” I needed to be seen by the world. During the pandemic, my series “Apocalyptic Society” and “Machangos” began to sell one after another, many people from the art world and collectors, friends, began to pay more attention to my work, so the “Machangos” series made me have that I jumped, without realizing it, I was already sharing walls with people that I appreciate and admire a lot. You have to put your soul and passion into what you love. Everything happens for a reason, the best decision of my life was to leave that career in advertising and design, although I am also grateful for having lived what I lived, without that I would not be here answering this interview.
Your artistic style seems to blend realism and art brut. Could you elaborate on how you developed this unique approach and what draws you to combine these two worlds in your works?
It all started with supposed mistakes and frustration. When I didn’t get a face or it didn’t fill me. I juxtaposed these more naive brute expressions and faces. And they began to emerge in 2015. Now they are called Machangos and they have been part of my pictorial growth, this series has had a lot of weight in my life for the same reason.
Everything arises from my mind, I create the scenarios there. Many of my ideas arise from experiences or moments that I have lived, from sarcasm, irony, travel, music, my life itself; I play a lot with two realities precisely, reality and fiction. My brother and I also share ideas in the studio, he has been a great inspiration in my creative process, we are always together. I find images as references and I modify them as I progress in the painting, others come out spontaneously and other pieces are a product of my imagination through my own photographs. I use Procreate a lot for the process on my iPad and sometimes pencil sketches.
I have never really liked following certain rules in painting. I like to have that carefree side and look for my own language. Modernity is more than evident but I felt that it needed more color, to be more ironic, irreverent and sarcastic. The human being is changing and adapts to his environment, this is what happens in a certain way with art; It is a language that is shaped with each passing minute. But it is always important to look inside oneself and express the day in which we live, our history, what we love. And of course the outside world influences and is changing rapidly, everything is going fast, it must be for a reason, we will have to wait.
Could you share some insights into your creative process? How do you decide on the themes and subjects for your artworks?
Everything is emerging in my mind, I share many ideas with my brother, lately we remember a lot of what we did as kids, we went to fairs, we did a lot of sports and above all we went out to have fun, we drink, we play video games, I go to the sea, I spend time With my fiancee and my daughter, many ideas arise from moments of my daily life, my childhood and the speed with which the world updates. That’s where my ideas come from, they also come from standing in front of the canvas or listening to music. There is another part of me in my youth that was a disaster, I spent a lot of time at parties and on the street, at thirty years old I did everything, I think that also influences me, the street.
Yes, well I now have two studios, one in Mexico City and another here in MErida in the Caribbean, these two Mexican worlds have greatly influenced my creativity. Both parts are two jungles for me; One is the concrete jungle and the other is the natural jungle. This mixture of these Mexican worlds has a lot of influence; from music, food, drink, the sea, animals and on the other hand the chaotic city, always in motion, with all this urban touch that can be seen many times in my work. They are two worlds that I am including little by little.
I am a person who has trusted a lot in those who don’t, Von Klaus for me was a waste of time and effort, exhausting. For me it is a fraudulent and ghost gallery. The founder left my pieces stored in North Carolina, after a year they have not returned to me, he does not want to take care of the return shipping. I looked for him for months, he kept telling me about the whereabouts of my paintings. I paid the shipping, he couldn’t even stretch them. You wear “Dior shoes” and you don’t have money to return their work to the artists? I never plan to work with someone like that, a liar.
I think that now is the best stage in my life and my career, I have a job that I love, which is painting, I have my family and people who truly appreciate me as a person and as a painter. Something that fills my soul is that my painting is traveling the world, that it is going to incredible places with incredible people. A moment that changed my life was moving to Durango 330 in Roma Norte, there my dream of having my own space came true.
