Who is Javier Ruiz?
Javier Ruiz is an emerging contemporary artist who has been developing his work around human relationships. Through his practice, the artist questions himself about what humans would be like without the influence of politics, culture and religion. Who are humans when they can do whatever they want? His paintings are always portrayed against the backdrop of Andalusian landscapes, with living figures, a group of people or isolated individuals. The support used is oil paint on canvas and paper, applied quickly, wet on wet, a technique that gives the works a sense of urgency and immediacy. This intuitive conviction seems to guide the creation process that stems from the nature of its object: the obvious of the real. His paintings manage to offer an incredible balance between believability and strangeness, resulting in incomprehensible but plausible representations.
The Early Career of Javier Ruiz: Young British Artists
The Spanish artist Javier Ruiz who was born in 1989, became famous for his figurative works of art. His creative work was mainly influenced by the early 1990s, with the group of UK artists that became known as YBAs, or Young British Artists. This diverse collective of creatives, loosely affiliated by age, nationality and association with Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Art in London, was favored by the super collector of the day, Charles Saatchi. The group's most successful artist is Damien Hirst, who was also one of the first organizers of the group's activities. Other members included Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas and Sam Taylor-Wood. Much of his work has become known for its shock tactics and the sensationalism of both material and message. They also became known for their use of disposables, wildlife and an attitude that was both countercultural rebellion and entrepreneurial. They gained a considerable amount of newspaper coverage and dominated British art during the 1990s. Their international shows in the mid-1990s included the now legendary 'Sensation'.
What is the theme of Javier Ruiz's works?
In essence, it is figurative art tending to portray recognizable features of reality or the human figure. Although the definition of figurative art seems quite simple, figuration still remains more than just a representation of reality. In fact, the different styles in which figurative art can be realized are endless, making figurative art an innovative and ever-evolving category on which Javier Ruiz's work is primarily based. Some critically acclaimed artists known for their impact on figurative art include Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne or Jean-Michel Basquiat.
What were Javier Ruiz's influences?
Conceptual photography led by German ideas and artists such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth and Wolfgang Tillmans gained recognition and inspired other artists, such as Canadian Jeff Wall, who experienced the kind of cinematic expansiveness associated with the work of German artists. Painters such as Albert Oehlen and Martin Kippenberger exerted a notable influence on younger artists. Also coming to prominence at this time was a developing trend in Japan related to the huge advertising and consumerism boom that occurred during the economic dominance of the 1980s. The indigenous culture of manga comics, coupled with trends in advertising, graphic design, and packaging, saw a young artist named Takashi Murakami develop his theories which he coined 'Superflat'. Influenced by his experiences in New York City in the mid-1990s, Murakami formed a powerful group called Kaikaikiki, which became internationally known as an artistic group. Relational Aesthetics became a key idea, a term coined by curator Nicholas Bourriaud in the 1990s to describe the tendency to make art based on or inspired by human relationships and their social context. Works by artists such as Douglas Gordon, Gillian Wearing, Philippe Parenno and Liam Gillick have been described as key artists working towards this agenda. A proliferation of trends characterized the decade, including the highly irreverent sculpture of Maurizio Cattelan and extremely sensitive advances in conceptualism, as shown in the work of artists such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
