In the modern landscape, many Artists, sculptors or painters have emerged with their unique styles and ways of expressing what they feel and observe in the world. Among them, Jorge Rivera is a rather prominent name.
Jorge Rivera is indeed an artist whose work reflects his diverse experiences, obsessions and thoughts. Perhaps, it is the unusual way in which he produces his work that attracts the eyes of people. Regardless, there is no doubt that his art calls out to you and makes you take a moment to appreciate and wonder how intricately a lot of the shapes and colours he uses might have been created.
Jorge Rivera
Jorge Rivera was born in Spain and over the years, he made a name for himself in the world of Art with his unique style and works of Art. He spent his early or initial years in London where he took admission into the Royal College of Art MA programme and then completed his Ph.D. in Fine Arts, Sculpture. This enabled him to refine his aesthetic perception and eventually allowed him to truly pursue his passion and career as an Artist.
Ever since then, Jorge Rivera has visited many countries and nations around the world and has found inspiration from the different places and traditions he has lived in. For instance, he has lived in and derived inspirations from several locations such as Vienna, Berlin, Tokyo, and Los Angeles among others. With his inspiration from many places, he has worked to recreate his observations, experiences as he enhanced his perception to reflect it in his Artworks.
With the production of a broad body of work, he has been recognized internationally getting his work auctioned by Sotheby’s and has been rewarded multiple times, most recently with an Art Residency in Lago Maggiore with Ten Haaf Projects and as a guest Artist in Walzwerk Art complex in Basel. His Artworks have been showcased at popular Art fairs, museums, and galleries, Arco, Art Taipei or FAL to name a few. In addition to these internationally shows, he has also showcased his work in many public and private collections.
Diversity and Artwork
What truly makes Jorge Rivera and his Artwork so unique is the diversity that the audience can observe and feel looking at his paintings and sculptures. It is not just the diversity of his experience but also the mediums and medias he uses in his pieces. Typically, the works of an artist are confined to only one or two medias or one way of presenting a problem, however, with Jorge this is not the case, his artwork encompasses different faces but a common signature and style which has evolved alongside his persona. Over the years, he has produced not only stunning paintings but also sculptures from rather unique materials, ranging from bronze, resin, glass or marble among others.
A viewer cannot help but be mesmerized while looking at his artwork. Every single artefact has a story and tale to share with observers. In his latest body of work produced in Taipei he has focused on paintings which are extremely three dimensional and tactile as they have been made not only with oil paint but with materials normally used for mould making, silicones, resins or plasters. In contrast, the sculptures in glass are extremely delicate and contemplative as they are not to be touched but rather to be looked at. Like this the roles of sculpture and painting are to a certain degree reversed for Rivera the space in between the second and third dimension is always a fruitful space of enquiry.
Difference in Background and Passion
What truly intrigues a person is when they get to know the background of Jorge Rivera and how he followed his passion despite all odds. He belonged to a rather noble family with his father being a high rank in the Spanish army and his mother being an opera singer. Jorge Rivera himself had an interest in a number of sports but along the way, he developed a passion for painting. While his family never thought that he would be fixated on pursuing a career as a painter, he did not look back.
Even though he stayed true to his roots, he still travelled the world with the intention of learning from different cultures and different methods of sculpting and painting. It would have been rather easy for him to just stay in his hometown and pursue a ‘normal’ and safer career, however he did not choose an easy path. Instead, he pursued a very personal path and tried to learn not only the technicalities of his profession but eventually how to navigate within the intricate world of Art and the Art market.
Upon the acquisition of formal education, he gathered the knowledge he needed alongside the conceptual framework and practical skills to continue his career as an Artist something that he sees and perceives as a journey of self-discovery due to the constant difficulties that any Artists needs to face in order to grow not only as an Artist but also as a person. In order to develop this understanding he had to dwell deep in Western and Eastern thinkers trying to find nexus and points of union between these two worldviews in terms of content and sense of aesthetics.
At the moment he is producing works for the Asian and European market having a studio running in the North of Taipei while working in different locations in Europe involved in different projects.
Artworks
As a result of Jorge Rivera has created and produced multiple Artworks in the form of oil paintings and sculptures. These works look into the creation of more universal Archetype unbounded from particular world views but rather emerging from a more globalised world blending the differences between Western and Eastern aesthetics from a contemporary framework. Some of his popular paintings include: The Spirit of Finesse, 1000 Hands Madonna, Diogenes’s Barrel among others. On the other hand, when it comes to sculptures, some of the most popular sculptures include Shaman’s Impulse, The Fool, Flaming Man or Petit Prince. Meanwhile, some popular glass sculptures include Spiritual Warrior, Faun in Love, and Sea of Glass among others.
At the moment Jorge is developing a new collection of works or as he likes to call it a new body of work titled Following the Steps of the Masters. This body of work focuses on exploring what is the role of mastery in painting as he tries to explore the unconscious drives that may had push ancient Spanish painters from the Spanish Golden Age to produce their masterpieces by reinterpreting them. In order to do this, Jorge uses different narratives and fictions that blend true stories of how different paintings from Spanish old masters such as Goya, Velazquez or Greco, might have come into being and traces parallels with the relevance of the creative act still has in our contemporary world view.
JORGE RIVERA
Ph.D., MA Royal College of Art
www.jorgerivera.art
https://www.instagram.com/jorgeriverart