Javier Talavera
Blueprints (Ensayos para la muerte)
In the field of engineering and architecture, the term “blueprint” was commonly used to refer to any kind of detailed graphic representation.
This set of pieces responds to a research inherited from the origins of art: the aspiration to understand ourselves. As a starting point, the artist takes the relationship between the body and its representation through the creation of a series of cyanotypes using sunlight, sea water, minerals and our own matter as the tools.
The artist revisits the genre of portraiture from a concept that transcends the elements that define notions of the individual, beyond gender or race, therefore challenging our conceptions of representation inscribed in the cultural idea of portraiture as a form of objective affirmation.
“Blueprints” seeks multiple and unfixed approaches to who we are through principles of representation close to the anonymous: a search for identity as a sum of forms.
Javier Talavera (Madrid)
He graduated as a telecommunications engineer in 2013. For three editions, he was part of the CASA program, studied creativity and strategies in contemporary art with Javier Vallhonrat, and holds an international master’s degree in contemporary photography from EFTI.
His work has been awarded and exhibited both nationally and internationally, with exhibitions in Spain, South Korea, the Netherlands, and China. He was selected as a candidate for the Carte Blanche program at Paris Photo ’22.
As an artist, he explores the boundaries conventionally attributed to reality and the photographic medium, aspiring to better understand the world around us and our own existence. His approaches promote and foster critical and reflective analysis of the images surrounding us, adopting a contemporary and multidisciplinary perspective in his developments.
The body of his work primarily revolves around ontological questions related to the nature of the human, such as existence, appearance, identity, and essence, exploring them through their material and conceptual dimensions.
