Juan Borja, Spiriti della Foresta (Forest Spirits). Upcoming exhibition 12th of september – 31st of october 2023, Fcf Gallery, Milano.
Juan is a photographer and environmentalist from Peru. "My inspiration comes from photographers like the Vargas brothers and Martín Chambi in the southern andes, the mexicans Graciela Iturbide, Juan Rulfo and Gabriel Figueroa, Felice Beato in Japan, the brazilian Sebastiao Salgado and Karl Blossfeldt from Germany, as well as pictorialists like Misonne."
Painting - (Garden of Eden) - 120 x 100 cm - Jarda
I painted this picture as one of my first more than 30 years ago on very rough jute material with acrylic paints. Since then, the painting is still in the same place in the bedroom above the bed. It is the only picture from that time that I have left. I have been painting for a relatively short time. Then I started to devote myself to creative, black-and-white (analog) photography. The main feature of my photographic work was the gradual abstraction of the image. I suppressed the Depth of Field, perspective, color range of halftones and means of expression. I am adding a few samples of photos from that time to my blog. I returned to artistic work with colors recently. From the past, I have remained fond of suppressed colors, perspective and simplification of means of expression. Lately, however, I sometimes miss the colorful way of painting that I used to do years ago. Maybe I'll go back to it partially. Jarda