Juan Pablo Ayala
Perro bebé
Conceptual art, printmaking, creative writing, book making, ilustration, editorial design, graphic design, sound, construction, gardener, private detective, latin-lover,
friend of dogs,
river swimmer,
ocean floater
and bounty hunter.
Magical Realism, Speculative Fable, Graphic Design, Editorial Design, Printmaking, Book art, Illustration, Creative Writing.
Resides in Oakland, CA. Born and bred in Caracas, a fan of Caruao.
Journalism, Graphic Design,
Printmaking and Book Art.
Universidad Monteávila, Prodiseño,
San Francisco Art Institute and Mills College.
MAGICAL REALISM
May The Flower of the Word Never Die (Náhuatl; 1996)
I engage with the written word, words that become short stories, poems, dialogues, and monologues that go into my books, books that raise protest through philosophical and spiritual poetics about ongoing environmental issues that haunt our planet, and inspire a necessary reconnection with nature in this digital time and age.
By rewriting the story of a colonial legacy that exploits natural resources, I present diasporic experiences of homes that have disappeared.
To empower and celebrate Gaia, I created “tropicalism” as a concept of pure and sacred nature, such as mangos from space and pineapples made of gold. Instead of presenting these problems directly, metaphors and personification turn issues into narratives and not facts, achieved through mystical realism, speculative fable and modern mythology. I intend to rewrite history for the new generations, and have the old generations remember what went wrong.
My mediums are archaic, Lithography (limestone) and Xylography (Wood). These processes empower the concepts of my statements through time and repetitive movements that become meditative. These are essential for establishing rhythmic order in the webbing of environmental, philosophic and spiritual poetics. These materials are crucial in my practice for their inherent naturalness, not only as medium but also as an analogy of that reconnection with sacred nature that I propose throughout my work.