Jhonatan Pulido

Jhonatan Pulido's works are large-scale, vibrant, and densely layered panels, in which the painter channels his Colombian heritage taking inspiration from snippets of political local graffiti and pastel-hued building facades, resulting in sparse but noticeable use of geometry through line and shape. 

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During his time at the RCA, Pulido reflected on his first encounters with colour, composition, and materiality. As a child and adolescent not having access to museums or art galleries meant that paint had a more functional approach in his subconscious (as the painting from houses in his hometown). Through an exercise of going back to this past and scrutinising his memories, he realised that painting was so embedded within his surroundings he ought to make use of it within his practice.

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Pulido's use of many decorative elements relating to Colombian rural house facades comes unconsciously during the acts of adding, removing, revealing, or covering certain texts or images during his painterly process. Since his works do not have an intended or planned geometry, his compositions are always fluid, never rigid.

 

“My practice is a constant reconstruction of the memory, not only seeing this as an act of remembering but as an ever-changing process of the materials with which I create. I point out the importance of colour and the act of painting within the Colombian rural population, where the value of painting lies more in its functionality than in the very concept of art-making.

 

I take formal components of Colombian villages’ architectures and the logic these follow as inheritance throughout history, reflecting on the communities, their traditions, their relationship with decorative aesthetics, and different socio-cultural issues including armed conflict, exclusion, and poverty.”