Interview
Ernesto José Fernández Arias
Ernesto José Fernández Arias (Havana, Cuba, 1997) is a visual artist whose pictorial work investigates the symbolic and formal relationships between the human body and nature. Trained at the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts, he began to develop his artistic practice continuously from 2018, with the aim of building a cosmology coherent visual that connects the organic, the material and the symbolic. His work, focused mainly on the oil technique, is characterized by the fusion of anatomical elements with textures inspired by the bark of trees, lichens or natural formations, generating dense, sensory and ambiguous images. He currently lives and works in Andalusia, Spain. In 2023, he was highlighted in the edition number five of the international magazine for emerging artists Suboart Magazine and participated in the collective exhibition of the 13th National Painting Contest in the Parliament of La Rioja (Logroño, Spain).
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“Since I was little, I was linked to the appreciation of the fine arts. My family took me to museums, artists' conferences, and children's workshops where, together with other kids, we drew, experimented with techniques and learned tricks. Art was always present in my life since childhood, generating a motivation that I could only describe as deeply intriguing. I remember the feeling that invaded me when contemplating in the museums those great paintings that seemed to arise from an ideal world, alien to everyday life. It was the energy of childhood when you discover something that fascinates you, that marks you. Since then I knew that art was my vocation, what I was best at and what I really wanted to do with my life. I'm from Havana, Cuba. I grew up in a Caribbean environment, with a humid climate, beautiful beaches, radiant sun and lush vegetation. From an early age I showed skills for drawing and painting, always encouraged by my family, especially by my grandmother María Mercedes, whom we all called Puchita. She fed my spirit and taught me to never abandon painting. I grew up in a warm environment, surrounded by cousins, brothers, friends and close neighbors. This was the Cuba of the 2000s: an ideal context - in my opinion - to forge a solid character and a healthy personality. A perfect environment to develop any talent or vocational inclination; in my case, painting. My journey into the art world began with those visits to museums, where the feeling of intrigue was overwhelming. I marveled at those large paintings, the majestic portraits. I wondered how they were done, and that question drove me. I deeply admired that level of human virtuosity capable of reflecting the world with pigments, of building charming and challenging atmospheres for perception.
At the age of 15, when I finished high school in Cuba, it was time to decide my path. That's when I began to prepare to enter the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts. During that stage I met one of the people who has most influenced my life: Professor José Cueli. I dedicate a special mention to it, because it not only inspired and motivated me, but also an entire generation of young Cuban artists, who undoubtedly have a deep respect and affection for the love with which he taught his classes. The preparation was exhaustive and complex; it lasted about seven months. Finally, I achieved the goal. Entering San Alejandro marked a before and after in my life. Already in adolescence, I began to feed on an infinity of artistic knowledge: from drawing and painting to video and audiovisual. It was a stage in which, although I still couldn't find my own voice, a wide range of possibilities opened up to me. I discovered the many ways of making, seeing, interpreting and analyzing art. I understood that my path could go to painting, but also to engraving, illustration, sculpture or even conceptual art.”
What inspires you?
“Art itself is a constant source of inspiration for me. Seeing other artists create, develop their works with commitment, passion and devotion, provokes an immediate desire to immerse myself in my own creative process, to make my own discoveries. Each person has their own path, their philosophy, their ways of seeing, interpreting and creating. I also find inspiration in music. But there is a very particular element within the creative process that I find deeply motivating: not knowing. That uncertainty about where a work is going, about how it can finally look, beyond the initial idea, is something that drives me. When I face a blank canvas, I let him be the one who suggests paths to me. I listen to what is emerging and let myself be guided. Not being completely decisive when it comes to painting fills me with curiosity, with questions about the creative phenomenon. That letting go, that flowing with the decisions that are being marked on the canvas, is fascinating. It makes the process less overwhelming, less tortuous. Not knowing exactly what will turn out, but trusting that something new can emerge, transforms each work into a surprise - and that, for me, is pure inspiration.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“In my work, I look for a constant exploration of the relationship between the human body and nature. I'm interested in how they intertwine, how they merge and sometimes even get confused in the same image. I work from organic forms, body textures, anatomical fragments that camouflage with barks, roots, lichens, fluids. There is something deeply symbolic in that fusion: a kind of return to the origin, to the body as a landscape, or to the landscape as a living body. I do not try to illustrate a closed idea, but to open a space of sensory and intuitive contemplation. I'm more interested in evoking than explaining. Many times I start from an intention, but I let the painting speak to me, that the process takes me down unexpected paths. In that sense, ‘not knowing’ becomes a fundamental part of the message: accepting uncertainty, constant transformation, ambiguity. If there is an underlying message, I would say that it is related to the need to reconnect with the essential, with the organic, with the intimate. My paintings are not narrative, but they do invite introspection, contact with something primitive, almost visceral. I want anyone who looks at one of my works to feel that they are facing something that breathes, that beats, that mutates. Something that, although it is not fully understood, is felt.”
How would you describe your work?
“To describe my work is, in part, to describe a sensory experience. I work with oil as the main medium because it allows me to build dense, material, almost tactile surfaces. I am interested in generating images that are not only seen, but felt: that invite you to stop, to observe slowly, to immerse yourself. The shapes that appear in my paintings are usually ambiguous, sometimes close to the anatomical, other times more vegetable or mineral. I am not interested in literal representation, but creating a space where the human and the natural are mixed, tense, recognized. Visually, my work moves between the organic and the abstract. There are recognizable elements - folds, textures, cavities - but they are not there to be identified, but to generate a kind of language of their own, almost symbolic. I am interested in each painting being a microcosm, a living surface that changes according to the mood of the person who looks at it. In essence, I would say that my work is introspective, intuitive and deeply connected with the body, both physically and emotionally. I do not seek to give answers, but to open a space where perception and interpretation become personal.”
Which artists influence you most?
“I feel deeply influenced by a combination of classical and contemporary references, both from the visual and musical worlds. Among the artists who have most marked my pictorial path are Christian Rex Van Minnen, Louise Giovanelli and El Greco. Each one, from its particular language, has left an important mark on the way I conceive the image, the matter and the emotional vibration of color. I am captivated by Van Minnen by his ability to work the grotesque and the sublime on the same surface. His use of chiaroscuro, texture and deformed, but visually hypnotic bodies, connects with my desire to build sensory images that provoke both attraction and strangeness. He takes the technique to the limit, but not as an end in itself, but as a means to generate tension, ambiguity and symbolic power. I am inspired by his formal freedom, his audacity in mixing the anatomical with the ornamental, the comic with the visceral.
Louise Giovanelli, on the other hand, influences me from a completely different sensitivity. In his work I find an almost liturgical delicacy, a kind of spiritual recollection. His treatment of color, light and repetition has made me rethink the value of detail, pause, prolonged gaze. There is something very intimate in his painting, a type of contemplation that I am interested in cultivating in my own work. She has helped me understand that intensity does not always need to scream: it can whisper and, even so, be deeply moving. And of course, El Greco. I have always been fascinated by his way of elongating the figures, of carrying them with inner fire, of making them look like bodies between the human and the heavenly. Its vibrant colors and vertical compositions, almost like flames or visual prayers, have taught me a lot about how to express the spiritual from matter. I identify with that contained drama, that way of painting bodies that seem to be in constant transformation.
I also find a very important source of inspiration in music, especially in Japanese jazz of the 70s. Artists like Jiro Inagaki or Shigeo Sekito accompany me many times during the creative process. I'm interested in that mixture of atmospheric softness and instrumental virtuosity that his pieces have. There is something in its structures - free, intuitive, full of layers - that connects with my way of painting: letting myself be carried away by what happens, improvising, and at the same time sustaining an internal architecture. In summary, my visual and sound universe feeds on the classic and the contemporary, the visceral and the ethereal. I am moved by artists who manage to create their own worlds, where technique is put at the service of emotion, the form of mystery, and the body of something bigger than himself.”
What is your creative process like?
“My creative process is deeply intuitive. I never start from a completely defined image or a closed idea; rather, I start from a sensation, an impulse, an internal atmosphere that I need to translate into pictorial matter. The first moment is usually very physical: facing the blank canvas with a mixture of respect, anxiety and enthusiasm. It is a space of uncertainty that is necessary for me, because that is where the authentic is born. I work in oil because I am interested in density, the slow drying time, the possibility of building layers, erasing, insisting. I let myself be guided by the painting itself. Many times it is the surface that begins to suggest shapes, tensions, directions. I do not seek to control each step, but to establish a dialogue with what appears: folds that evoke bodies, textures that approach the plant or the mineral, forms that seem alive or mutant. Sometimes, I don't know what I'm painting. During the process, I listen to a lot of music because it helps me enter a mental state where everything flows, where I can let go of rational thinking and let myself be carried away by the rhythm, the sound layers, the movement. Music accompanies me as a common thread that allows me to remain sensitive, open, in a state of search. For me, creating a work is not executing an idea, but discovering something I didn't know. It is a journey in which the body, memory, technique and intuition are intertwined. I work slowly, with long pauses between layers, observing how the image evolves, how it transforms. In that sense, the process is both pictorial and introspective. Each painting is a negotiation between control and accident, between what I want to say and what the work wants to be. My task is to be present, alert, willing to listen. Because if there is something that I am clear about, it is that the painting always knows more than me.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I deeply believe that the role of the artist goes beyond technique or the mastery of materials. Of course, the craft is important - it is the language that allows us to build images, shape our ideas and emotions - but it is not enough. For me, the true role of the artist is to seek beauty and human virtue, not only as an aesthetic ideal, but as a transformative tool. Art has the ability to inspire, to open internal doors, to show possible paths towards creativity and introspection. I feel that the artist has the responsibility to connect with his own inner universe, explore it with honesty, with sensitivity, and then share part of that journey through his work. Because when someone creates from an authentic place, he can touch others deeply. It can motivate them not only to appreciate what they see, but also to question themselves, to know each other, to create. Art has that power to wake up something asleep, to remind us that there is beauty in the imperfect, in the ambiguous, in the emotional. I think that the more we know ourselves, the more we understand the environment we inhabit, our relationships, our history, our landscape. Art - either as a practice or as an experience - is a way to expand perception, to build bridges between the internal and the external. From that vision, being an artist is not only producing images, but also opening spaces of sensitivity, reflection, consciousness. My wish is that my work not only dialogues with the visual, but also with the human. That invites you to stop, to feel, to think. That motivates others to explore their creativity, to build their own symbols, to look for their own voice. Because in the end, I think we all have an inner universe waiting to be revealed, and art is one of the most beautiful ways to start that path.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“My path as a visual artist is still beginning, and I am in a stage of search, consolidation and openness towards new experiences. Although my career is still young, I have been lucky enough to receive some opportunities that I consider significant in this growth process. In 2023, I was selected to participate in the collective exhibition of the Parliament of La Rioja as part of the 13º National Painting Contest, a very enriching experience that allowed me to show my work in an institutional context of relevance within the Spanish artistic panorama. That same year, I was also included in the 5th edition of Suboart Magazine, an international magazine dedicated to emerging artists, which represented for me a great motivation and a way to connect with a wider creative community. These experiences have reaffirmed my commitment to painting and to the development of my own visual language. They are just the first steps of a path that I want to travel with depth, dedication and coherence, always faithful to my need to explore the body, nature and the mystery that dwells in the image.”
Website: ernestojosepaintings.carrd.co
Instagram: @ej.f.a
Brush Bio: www.brush.bio/ernesto-jose-fernandez-arias
