Jose Cori
About Jose
The pervading coloration in Jose Cori’s works has undeniably become the artist's muse. His overly saturated compositions reveal themselves without concrete outlines or an initial compositional plan, but through improvised silhouettes that often reference the tonalities of his Latin heritage.
Cori’s pictorial path oscillates between abstraction and figuration, which brings forth elements of his memories, nature, characters, and places. He emphasises that the image should be made “only through color, line, and contrast.” Thus, his practice perpetually wields vibrant tones and shades into voluminous figurations and deep semi-abstract patterns, through the exclusive use of colored pencils.
Within this autonomous oeuvre, the Chilean artist devised a series of works that render homage to diverse moments in art history, more precisely, a corpus of XIV, XIXth, and XXth-century master paintings. Although rather than solely imitate, the artist mingles “high” and “low” cultures, whereby the viewer can grasp myriad allusions, from Matisses’ saturation to the cubist abnegation of perspective to Hockney’s contemplations. Jose Cori’s hues and blank delineations offer references to the quotidian with a beautiful simplicity that speaks of a unique imagination and understanding of the art canon.
