Words from an Artist: Jose Guillermo Garcia Sierra Dives Into Two Paintings

The Painter Presents His Pieces ‘Float’ and ‘Vegetable Stand’

‘Float’ is a 34” x 40” painting by Jose Guillermo Garcia Sierra. Courtesy Jose Guillermo Garcia Sierra

Jose Guillermo Garcia Sierra is a contemporary painter that utilizes collage to create his compositions. He gathers visual references mostly from stock images, as they are always reenactments of average happenings and objects.

He is also a Concordia painting and drawing student in his fourth and final year. He was the Visual Arts Visuels Gallery’s finance and administrative coordinator during the 2018-2019 year, and he is currently working as an exhibitions mediator at Phi Centre. He also co-created the curatorial collective Antes.

Float
34” X 40”

Let’s start with a flamingo—a real, feather-full, and slim flamingo. Flamingos have peculiar physical characteristics; the bright pink animal will surely captivate your attention, or at least make you look twice.

The beauty of such a unique living being is one that we often attempt to grasp and use for a plethora of commodities, products, and creations.

As much as we might want to connect to nature, we’re also drawn to spending our days off in constructed landscapes that also mimic nature.

In the painting, the real flamingos are being presented in the background layer as blurry, colossal, and distant beings.

The more we approach the main and clear layer in the painting, the more superficial the reality of the piece gets.

There are two layers being intertwined with one another that represent fake or alternative versions of the existence of the flamingo.

The plastic garden flamingos and the floater flamingo are as real as the actual animal, but they are real in their own form.

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As inanimate beings, they only serve a purpose thanks to their relationship and utility to people. That is the reason why they were created anyway. As luxury items, they only serve a purpose to a small sample of people.

It is so peculiar to see objects that mimic other things that exist. It’s somewhat amazing that these objects grab a few characteristics of the ones they are trying to mimic and end up being so satisfying visually.

As much as a floating flamingo can be an absurd and over-the-top item, I’ll admit to jumping on one if ever I see one.

‘Vegetable Stand’ is a 24” x 36” painting by Jose Guillermo Garcia Sierra. Courtesy Jose Guillermo Garcia Sierra

As much as we might want to connect to nature, we’re also drawn to spending our days off in constructed landscapes that also mimic nature.

The work really presents different layers of experiencing, twisting, and being with nature. It is not a critique, merely an observation. One that sets a mood.

Vegetable Stand
24” x 36”

The painting is filled with numerous images and elements, all intertwined and interacting with one another throughout the space of the canvas.

The painting is rich in content, and it’s meant to become even more generous as the viewer maintains their attention on it and focuses on the details.

My primary intent is to give the spectator a visual feast and a voyage in wonder. I completely assume the freedom that I give the viewer in terms of interpretation.

This is not to say the painting is made arbitrarily; the elements within it are all carefully selected.
Many of them reference advancements in technology and the new paradigms arising from the merging of humanity, automation, and computers.

I, however, lay these references quite loosely as it is important to maintain a sense of wonder within the work.