Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
Ivan Juarez
lives and works in Mexico
An artist ' s statement
A s a practicing architect and artist with specialization in landscape architecture, my main field of interest lies in the relationship between art and function and how this connection can be expressed on the built and natural environment; I am interested on integrating the disciplines of public art, architecture, design, and landscape. The projects created in my studio explore new ways of relating space with society; projects which I have conceived them in reason and function of its physical context and could not be generated in other place than in the one of their conception and realization. Since its conception, my artistic process is closely joined to the surroundings that lodged it, in which I develop a daily connection with the context in which I involve local people, applying local concepts, materials and techniques. For me every art work has always been a constant search, in each new project I want to be able to discover and experiment new possibilities. In this way each project has a special character that gives me diverse options as a window that opens and drives me to another. My work started with the will of creating spaces from which I could reflect, research, and act in different fields of contemporary culture. From the beginning I have never conceived architecture just as a specialization, but as a wider vision of understanding and questioning the environment that surrounds us, in which every project can enrich itself through different views and disciplines. The work created in my studio doesn’ t start only from architecture but is nourished by various sources: cinema, music, dance, painting, or literature are, in many occasions, what give guidelines to my spaces. My art production explores new aspects to redefine the borders between the contemporary city and its environment by creating new hybrid landscapes, as open interventions that leave spaces for new encounters. In this way, the pieces dialogue with the landscape, generating new ways of coexistence between the natural and the built surroundings, creating new readings that establish a dialogue between nature, man, and his space.
In this perspective, I have produced a series of artistic works, conceiving them as interactive and sensitive pieces that explore the natural environment through my personal experience. A series of interventions created in different contexts and scales in which the relationship with the environment is the essence of the work. These works have been conceived in United States, Taiwan, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Norway, Portugal, Brazil, Senegal, Peru and Mexico and they have been awarded by multiple international institutions.
Ivan Juarez