Javier Carrera – Cuco – Artist in Residence

Javier Carrera about his work at the Linz Habor…

The project proposal revolves around the processes that I develope inside and outside the studio about paper and wall, in parallel with a “scan” work of the city of Linz. I make connections between the introspective and daily work that I do in my sketchbooks with the work that I carry out on the public space where I create larger pieces based on the  site specific context of the wall that I’m going to paint in Linz’s port. The name of the project is “Paper – Mud – Wall”.  I´m investigating with mud (dirt and water) because it is as if it were the glue that connects the conceptual and processual part of the project. I´ve walked along Linz looking for relationships with my graphic universe and managing to connect it with my own symbols, for example the two horses heads on Dinghoferstraße, the geometries on the stained glass window of the new cathedral, classical sculptures and columns in the Francisco Carolinum Museum, etc. Drift has helped me create a kind of cosmological map of Linz. Covid has been a big determining factor to the project when it comes to interacting with the city,  that is why I´ve focused on ornamental elements of the public space, visibles for everybody.

Javier Carrera is working in public spaces…

I think it´s an honest way of approaching my work to the viewer. Anyone who walks near the place where I paint can ask me about my work or maybe give their point of view. Sometimes it can be quite harsh listen to it as it puts added pressure, but many other times people enrich the message of the work and appropriate it to unimaginable levels. I think it´s good to paint in the public space, but we must be aware of where we are painting, the context, people who travel the space, who managed it, etc.  As an artist I believe an internal processing of all that information/conditioning is necessary.

I like to think about the relationship of my work with the public space, What elements to represent? What is the relationship with the context? Which reasoning do I apply to a specific place in the world? As if it were a hieroglyphic language, each person can read the elements depending on their trajectory, vital moment or state of mind, as if it were a mythological story. It‘s interesting to scale my drawings, see them first in the sketchbook  and then painted on the wall, see the difference in sizes, lines, etc. Besides, nobody usually sees it in the sketchbook and on the wall it´s difficult not to see them.

I try to create connections between “what” and “where” connects point A with point B. In this specific case “where” is Linz, since I´m investigating around the city with the artistic residency in Salzamt, not only with the mural.  That’s why I´ve locate a series of elements that the city Linz and my work share. I’ve also added the words CUCO and LINZ as graphic elements in the composition since they are the two points that I´ve been trying to join from the beginning of the project.

https://www.instagram.com/cuco_cuco_cuco_cuco/

LINZ – Part l: https://www.instagram.com/p/CN43KzLKyuq/

LINZ – Part ll: https://www.instagram.com/p/COQDq5DKiDG/