As a solo artist what was your first exhibition and which reflected?
JF: The title of my first solo exhibition, "Intro," the introduction, was the coming to my final journey, the painter after some time working only with commissions wanted to present the work to a wider audience.. also wanted to built a bridge, unify my past and my present under one roof. This was the motif. The first work on display was a panel of about 30 tiles, a reflection of this route, with performances memories where acted, characters I created, in the stage, or people and moments that have influenced my growth. It was also a showcase of various topics that fascinate me, mask, theater, female figure, some surrealism and very intense reflection of four months that resonate already like a dream, where the summer went by my window but left images. "Intro" also made a tribute to the city that welcomed me, Oporto, and where did all the work for the exhibition. Six of the works of "intro" went to the United States, two of them landscapes of Porto. People who wanted to take a little of the city with them too. It boasts a lot. It was also the time to look for comfort in my registration to search a trait that identifies me. Hence delivery for the rest of me.
I want to address now how you paint, your dash specifically, I think that the strokes are urgent, have plenty of energy, are strong and very fast. Reminds me of Van Gohg and it shows the care with light.
JF: From Impressionist and Post Impressionist I learned instinct as a way to paint. Sounds to me more honest. Does not move me too polished a stroke. Like scars marks. Urgent is the word. My most honest work is the speed of thought, these quick and instinctive strokes. A great desire to communicate without filters. My tile work is what is closest to the urgency, as if to capture a moment that is ever present, always on the move fleeing to the future and the past. The size of the tile is perfect, sums me. "Intro" had large screens. "Cosmos" for example has 1.87x4.90m. In the range of these screens always come back to the tile for the pleasure it gives work agility and simplicity in strokes. I still cannot transpose it completely to large canvas, for the broadest gesture. That is what I seek. Urgent also by the time I have to recover, to learn. For much I still want to do.
Let's talk about your creative process, first you have an idea and then quickly do a sketch, or there is a deep analysis of light, and then the theme is that you draw?
JF: I like to sketch ideas, if I'm working on commissions like to show them to my clients, to talk to them if possible, to know the person who will receive a work at home. I love to have themes, like skirting my ideas and then to flow within these margins. I like to take the draft as far as feel like enough. Often just too little. Especially because the canvas is still queen, is it that dictates the course of this sketch, always evolving, is lost and found, the oil temper is who commands the dance. I do research, I lose myself in the work of others, I like to photograph learn to compose better, gather ideas, dream themes, imagine them in the light. But I leave almost everything to the canvas. Work very fast in the first gestures after mid-term, leave space to reflect, to see what they want to change, half pull away me, I sit down, turn the canvas on the wall, start another, caught them a week later, with new look. If it look ok no complains. I have the studio door corner with ink marks because that is where I go back to do. I also like to work some canvas at the same time, to let breathe the work. My biggest learning at this stage was to learn to stop. Still create a surplus sometimes from chaos to order but I learned to subtract, to let act. Stage things as well.
You use watercolor, oil paint and even digital techniques. What is your preferred medium?
JF: I use watercolor for traveling because it is easily portable. I travel as much as possible with my wife and always take my watercolors for landscapes to registrate ideas. To try. It is a very feminine, more delicate element requires lightness, care, balances me the dash, the male side. Still very dirty, but I like to create by mistake. Like the spot, creating the suggestion of ways.My favorite medium is oil definitely, as contained a explosive, intense and delicate, is a very complete and living environment, there is a link with the past. But apply much of what we learn in watercolor to oil, like the glazing, to create textures and veils over the brush strokes or the first layers of work, in the first layer. One day I will have the courage to leave work in the first phase, which is where we still think it's more interesting and only comes to the public in small canvas passes. After the digital, because I am a child of the age of the embryo switches to the spectrums and the first macs. Vermeer had the mirror box, approaching the model and light, I think in that sense the computer a useful tool. But even in my admittedly more digital works there is always a real basis for drawing or watercolor. After I like to see where I can take that image with the computer. However, in painting there is no control z, so it's a way to be able to experience ideas, cut time short, see chromatic changes reflect the light. But It does not stonish me, I do not do anything on the computer that not honestly feel you can do on the canvas. And then I can combine everything in some studies, such as that illustrated book for children, where the elements of drama, watercolor, oil and digital come together harmoniously and where the scenario was one more time present. I asked a friend to create 20 actions for the character of a girl and then with these drawings created over the stage for her, through expressions imagined and illustrated the world around her. The result will be published shortly.
And when it appears the frustration?
JF: Being self-taught in painting as in music, learned by trial and error, by observation. Frustration has been a constant for a long time. I destroy many canvas, I repainted so many, still error, but less and less hope. The frustration disappeared, gave way to the notion that each painting is always a journey, that there will always be ups and downs. I think all artists feel it, for more years of experience they have. With time, I learned to recognize this and to stop breathing, not to massacre the work and commit fewer errors. Another thing that brought me theater, clown art, was to turn the error in the take as a positive, recognizing it as a possibility to make the idea grow. The painting, art is a living entity, a metaphor for life, not meant to be perfect but wants to evolve.
Tell me a little about your next exhibition in 2016. What is the common thread that show?
JF: I have four exhibitions for 2016. I'll state by mid-February at the "Majestic" in Porto, in the showroom that space has. It will be a much more intimate exhibition that "Intro", which mainly expound tile 24x24 cm. I want to register more OPorto, because it fascinates me the city. I want to take the space of the "Majestic" some of its own elegance, but also want to invite the street to enter. OPorto has pictures that fascinate me by its medieval character. I invite these two ports, which are part of it, to coexist. It fascinates me the elegance of space, exist this time, the female form upright men, the new art, but also fascinates me the drama and the curvature of street figures, the mad, the beggars, vendors. I want to make a very quick registration tiled of some of these pictures and I will have some landscapes of the port because it is an infinite universe, a puzzle of colors and formes and misshapen lines. It is a city with plenty of character. At the same time have commissions to paint, orders from abroad too, and I am preparing a very special project here in the United States, I cannot reveal but which is based on the Dionysus myth and Port wine that I will start well that lands in Portugal. I also have the possibility to exhibit in Paris and I am already developing the sketches for this project. It will be a very busy year.
