NATURE, 2020 Print

40 x 30 x 40 In Search of Color and Geometry Juan Jose Hoyos Quiles was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has been drawing and painting since a child. Juan attended The School of Visual Arts in NYC from 1979 to 1982 where he studied under Elizabeth Murray, Keith Sonnier, Raphael Ferrer, Nachume Miller, and Lucio Pozzi. After participating in several group shows in Tribeca and the Lower East Side, where a new gallery district was developing, Juan increasingly found it difficult to remain a full-time artist. Therefore in order to make a living, Juan worked for several decades in business management for several large companies in corporate law, accounting, and telecommunications. During this period Juan continued making art when he could but did not exhibit. After two open heart surgeries in 2011 and 2013 for congenital heart valve prolapse, Juan went into early retirement. Finally freed from money constraints, Juan relocated to Clearwater, Florida in 2014 and has returned to painting since then. Juan is an abstract, geometric, hard-edge painter. His paintings are fueled by his love of abstraction which he has been attracted to since a child. The practice of making them has involved researching the many abstract schools of art from the early 1900s to the present. Since returning to painting he started a series named Concrete Composition, which is still ongoing and in addition he paints other geometric paintings . The term Concrete Art was first used by the Dutch artist and designer Theo Van Doesburg geometric abstraction. Although Juan does not believe in adhering to one idea and making many variations, all of his paintings adhere to the visual codes of Concrete Art, such as flat blocks of color, straight lines, hard edges, the grid, patterns and geometry. He experiments with color juxtaposition, form, space and rhythm, often listening to background music ranging from contemporary jazz, disco, and even House dance music. Although a mature artist, his spirit is young. He relates to painting as if it were a dance, trying to understand new steps between color and geometry. There are never any hints of gestures or marks. The paintings are distilled, precise and elegant. He works intuitively and never works from drawings or studies. One painting influences the other. He puts one color down and the next color is a response to the previous. If it doesn't work, the paint is overpainted but he never reveals any traces.