Juan Canavesi

Juan Canavesi was born in 1960, Córdoba, Argentina.

Draftsman, sculptor and engraver. The installation and the setting are formats that he uses in numerous projects.

He began his academic training at the Esc. Sup. de Bellas Artes Dr. José Figueroa Alcorta.

He obtained a scholarship from the National Endowment for the Arts and worked with the sculptors Juan Distéfano and Antonio Pujía. He perfected himself in graphic techniques Rimer Cardillo at the State University of New York at New Paltz (United States). Since 1984 he has participated in national and international salons. He holds more than 52 individual exhibitions and 200 group exhibitions at home and abroad.

He joined Proyecto Pandora, together with artists from the US, Chile and Argentina in Proyecto'ACE, invited by the National Academy of Fine Arts of Argentina, he participated in the Trabucco Award for engraving. He currently lives and works in the workshop of La Cumbre and Córdoba.

Cantabria Project (NAT Art Residence - 06/2023)

Residents: Juan Canavesi / Carlos Lista

This project was carried out between June 12 and 24, 2023 in Tagle, Suances town, Cantabria, within the framework of the NAT RESIDENCIA DE ARTE program, directed by Andrea Juan and Gabriel Penedo Diego.

It is part of a vital process of personal transformation shared by both residents, as a search for new certainties, far from the prevailing hegemonic discourses and their misleading and alienating proposals.

Cantabria and specifically the place where we developed this project (Tagle), offered us the conjunction of nature and quality of life, stimulation and serenity, of ancestral past and dynamic present, as well as the possibility of meeting others and ourselves in an appearance of stopped time.

With the guidance of Andrea and Gabriel we visited places where we got closer to the art of our distant Paleolithic ancestors, we shared walks, moments and reflections to finally undertake the repeated search for objects returned by the sea.

The beach was our first space-laboratory, which offered us the materials to discover, find, collect, classify and create. Thus, it became our open-air workshop and a privileged place for creative observation, thought and contemplation.

Treasured Fragility

by Juan Canavesi

The ephemeral condition of plants attracts me more than the inert nature of minerals. That which is born, develops, dies and degrades faster than a stone. The life cycle of a tree is more similar to that of a human being than to the eternity that we attribute to a rock.

Perhaps that is why I collect and treasure fragments of wood transformed by time and the sea, which the water deposits on the sand. Polished pieces of whimsical shapes, unappreciated and useless objects that I rescue for the beauty that my gaze discovers in them.

Through embossing I try to treasure the fragility of these found pieces. It is the trace on the paper that collects hidden data on the object, its marks, its wounds, the faint roughness or the crack.

With the pressure of my hands, I leave the imprint on the paper that separates my skin from the skin of the object to create a new skin of paper. In this process, pencil, ink and color are absent.

The embossing invites you to pause, eludes the careless observer and is only susceptible of being perceived by the attentive gaze and loving touch. If not, it may go unnoticed, as it often does with many of the pieces of wood left on the beach.