The Brothership Building Window curated by Berkshire Art Center (formerly IS183 Art School of the Berkshires) will feature Not how I planned it: misprints from Nowhere by Javier Robelo for the month of November.
Artist Bio: Javier Robelo is a visual artist and art educator from Managua, Nicaragua. He holds a BA in Art History and Studio Art from Williams College. He works with colored pencils, printmaking, oil painting, frescos, fabrics, woodworking, and more; exploration across mediums lies at the heart of his practice. His time spent in museums and classrooms has instilled in him an interest in the limitless potential of art as a tool for inquiry and growth. He creates colorful and playful visual experiences: engaging with the world around him through fictional characters and imaginative landscapes. Javier is the print technician and studio manager at Williams College in Williamstown, MA.
Artist Statement: I am deeply intrigued by our relationships with the things we create and collect, how we attach meanings and read stories from them. In museum spaces, art and material culture are often presented as objective evidence, used to generate knowledge and construct a specific image of the past. In my art practice, I seek to mimic how objects on display are actually used for subjective world-building and creative storytelling. I see my work as a space for my lived experiences and imagination to intertwine. I use fictional creatures and fantastical landscapes to counter understandings of memory as something other than subjective and deeply personal. Creating a collection of imagined objects allows me to break free from the limiting material nature of collecting practices traditionally used to record this world, and in turn, presents a unique opportunity for me to imagine my own. Through my creative practice, I seek to garner the potential of art-making for warm and limitless archiving. My work is a tool for me to record memories, affects, and personal mythologies. Not how I planned it: misprints from Nowhere brings together printed matter from a fantastical world in order to document the vulnerability, joy, disappointment, and freedom that can come from inadvertent happenings.
Photo provided by Javier Robelo.
Photo provided by Javier Robelo.