Juan Zamora_Ichthys_01/07/14_03/03/14_Dossier

For his first exhibition in our gallery, Juan Zamora offers us his latest works, conceived and executed on the occasion of his stay in China. It is a project conceived specifically for this exhibition, in which it is easy to appreciate a new facet, as well as a new perspective on his previous work, allowing us to observe contributed as a manifestation of artistic maturity. A work whose focus is a concern every time more accused by the allegorical Baroque universe (their latest samples have gone deep in this perspective that puts to death as a center), while the other attends the vertigo of the mobility of the signs in the changing contemporary Chinese culture.

It could not be said that the leitmotiv of the project is unique. It is true that everything starts with the fear of death that perceives the artist as a result of health problems suffered by, motivated by extreme pollution that suffers from the city of Beijing and that is reflected in conversations with his friend Óscar Alonso, author of the introductory notes to the catalog for this exhibition. Shortly afterward, we are going to find some skeins of beautiful metaphors with extensive historical cultural content.

The title of the exhibition, Ichthys, takes us to the symbol of the fish, used by early Christians, which was an allegory of good luck. Also in modern China goldfish is used as a badge of wealth and luxury. Also, the fish as a sign of deep truth (underwater) that hides to be trapped.

There are numerous recorded myths of primordial fish or ichthyform beings assuming functions of a cultural hero. Juan seems to intuit all those far traditions (in time and levels of our memory), organizing a symbol seemingly friendly, and delicate almost resonances new-age, but an unexpected potential strength to build a whole aesthetic universe to her around through photographs, drawings, videos and installations displayed in the gallery space. Swimming in the head (cloud-brain) of the child demigod is the desire for prosperity with which it is associated in Chinese culture, becoming a metaphor about the immateriality of dreams beautiful. It will be up to that kid’s look so fragile and contained, that we do not know if prays or sleeps, requests or offers, operate as a mediator between the commercial evolution of beliefs and forces spanning the world, with all its brutality and all its beauty.