With a vast list of internationally renowned artists who have been highly influential in the development of art around the world, Mexico has long been a cultural hub that keeps on giving and promoting artistic industries.
Holding an outstanding career, Mexican artist José Gónzalez Veites is an instance of artistic creativity and identity. He studied at the Academy of San Carlos , the first major art academy and fine arts museum in the Americas. Then, he traveled to Europe where he lived and worked at the Emilio Vedova workshop in Venice, Italy. His work has been exhibited solo at the Hispanic Gallery , the Mexican Art Gallery , and galleries in the United States and Europe. Moreover, he has also participated in over one hundred collective exhibitions in Mexico and abroad.
His work has been analyzed by important art critics like Damián Bayón , Rita Eder , Teresa del Conde , María Minera , Evelynne Brack , Patricia Sloane , Phyllis Braff , and Avelina Lésper , among many others.
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His pieces are part of important private collections in the United States , Belgium , and Mexico as well as of different museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, U.S., the Fine Arts Museum , in Charleroi, Belgium, the C ontemporary Art Museum in Montevideo, Uruguay, and the Manuel Felguérez Abstract Art Museum in Zacatecas, Mexico.
Throughout his career, he has persisted in looking for geometric abstraction and searching for impromptu accidents . Through color and lines that he uses as skeletons of sorts, Veites establishes a dialogue that is possible by means of the creation of an artificial dimension .
In the framework of his first exhibition at the Hispanic Gallery in Mexico City, EL UNIVERSAL in English had the opportunity to converse with José G. Veites about his career, his influence, and his inspiration.
Veites’s work is essentially geometric but not in a rigid way. Although he studied art during the time of the so-called Mexican Geometrism , whose influence is still present in his art through the relationship with the spectator and the phenomenon of perception, his style has somewhat deviated from the pure expression of geometry , which is perhaps the main aspect of the artistic identity of his work.
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This Mexican artist has always enjoyed playing with dimension . At the beginning of his career, he created what he calls reliefs that were neither paintings nor sculptures. “They had volume, they were monochromatic , geometrically perfect , and moved forward.” But after spending time in Europe, his style transitioned into imperfect geometric lines , “I don’t mind if they’re crooked, if they bleed. [The outcome] is not a result of neglect; it’s a way to search for expression, a line that is not always perfect, that is nervous.”
Another important element for José G. Veites is color : “I’ve always been interested in color. A lot of color. I often paint pure black or white pieces, but generally, I use a lot of color. Those are my main concerns.”
With over 40 years of career, Veites works daily in his workshop, where he undergoes a particular creative process. “I paint. If I like it, it’s ok; if I don’t, I throw it away,” he asserts. He mainly works with acrylics on canvas, as well as oil , but a great part of his work has been done on paper . In this material, he likes working in collages and assemblies . He mentions that what he best likes about paper is the special texture it presents after being ripped and that is what captivates him the most, “I’m interested in that thing that is broken, that space that is left between the layers of paper, and then, by putting one sheet over the other, that is a real space .” For Veites, paintings are a fictional space and he has always tried to create spatiality despite its falseness and difficulty , but paper provides him a real space, although minimal .
“I tear paper, and build, and tear, and paste, and build, and something is created,” Veites says. This particular use of paper goes hand in hand with the imperfect line he constantly seeks. This endless search for intended flaws is not a result of a precise plan in his mind “I never do sketches because whenever I try to do one, the result is never like it but another completely different thing. So I prefer to do directly what I want to do. I have a sort of previous idea of the space and the color , but what’s best is not to have any idea at all, that the work itself makes something flow and something happen and thus obtain a result.”
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Perhaps, freedom is best achieved for Veites in his notebooks . Whenever he paints, he uses the leftover materials to paint on notebooks while the main pieces are drying. He says that unlike canvas and paper, for which many artists feel a lot of respect and precaution, notebooks provide a sensation of carelessness that allows more variety and expression that cannot be achieved otherwise.
Likewise, his creative process does not look for perfection , for he does “what comes to my mind at the moment. Sometimes I try to rescue [the paintings] and sometimes I don’t, depending on whether they are my notebooks or my paintings.”
Nonetheless, he is quite aware that the pieces may portray a different identity once they are out of his workshop and spectators interact with them. He mentions that with frequency people’s attention is caught by a certain detail that he had not paid attention to but yet, it communicates something to them, and thus the dialogue between art and spectator commences.
Regarding “Ráfagas en el Zambeze” (Gusts at the Zambeze), his first exhibition at the Hispanic Gallery in Mexico City, Veites says that, besides being created in the same space, the pieces do not have an overarching element connecting them all. However, with such a strong artistic identity developed throughout his career, the spectator can link their unique variety through interpretation. In the end, Veites' idea of establishing a dialogue between his pieces through his particular creative process is so compelling that, although challenging, their relationship is undeniable. “It’s daring and meaningful . After all, one notices there is a distinct concern for color , shape , and way of working that is essentially my reflection . I paint this way, not another.”
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The title of this exhibition makes a reference to the Zambeze river in Africa that for Veites evokes a journey , discoveries , surprises , and this has been the artist’s overall feeling with the articulation of the exhibition. Over the course of his career, he has also noticed the relevance of titles, mainly with abstract art , for they allow a first link with the spectator, a point of departure for interpretation .
Hence, it is always amusing for José G. Veites to keep showing his artistic work, to establish a dialogue with the spectator through the imperfection of color and dimension but mostly, to show himself through his art for, in his long career, he has learned that when it comes to exhibitions “you don’t only exhibit your work, you also show yourself.”
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