“Painting has a lot of intuition. That intuition is what gives you the magic, the soul, and it is what sets us apart. But only with intuition is not enough ... I have always defended painting as an intellectual process. There are paintings in which I think much longer than I paint.”–Jose Luis Ceña Ruiz
So much of our life revolves around places we will never go and people we will never meet. Media has imagined a fantasy world where we all willingly participate—except painter Jose Luis Ceña Ruiz. Instead, he has become synonymous with his paintings, sacrificing his life to the art of seeing beyond the screens whose presence dominates our day-to-day experience. His work echoes the sounds of the past, molding multiple abstract forms into solitary moments.
NOWHERE is a collection of embers from the artist’s life, his devotion to surpassing the finite. His hand is kinetic; the energy of his marks reverberate through our senses. Spontaneously born out of a studied understanding, these marks are the grounding evidence of the tactile moments that make up our lives. If only we could pause long enough to listen, the static of the modern world would fall into the background, behind the untamable immediacy of our senses.
“I end the day with the feeling of having been in so many places and lived so many things.” The clock of the modern world runs on hyper-speed, and stepping out of the current can feel lonely. Like another traveler on an isolated road, Ceña Ruiz meets the viewer face to face. He offers timeless counsel on the state of being alone, gleaned from the struggle of walking beyond where the path of culture ends, both everywhere, and nowhere. Whether emerging, coming, or going, Ceña’s paintings mark a before and an after in the journey. –Maia Jackson
Jose Luis Ceña Ruiz's NOWHERE opens at San Francisco's Mirus Gallery this Friday, October 11th, with an opening reception from 7 to 10 pm, and is on view through November 9, 2019.
