La conexion. More than package

Our featured artist, J. Gonzalo Medellin, was born in San Luis Potosi March 21, 1966, into a family of artists; notably his father Carlos E. Medellin, muralist, painter, photographer and graphic designer. His artistic mother made decorative floral sculptures out of a mixture of bread and glue as well as puppets with crystal balls. As a child he was exposed to many types of arts and crafts and at a very early age began drawing, with special interest in the anatomical figure. As an adolescent, and still in SLP , Gonzalo studied "grabado" (engraving) and began working in wood and metal, creating and selling velvet enhanced religious icons.

Gonzalo left SLP when he was 20 to pursue his career in art in SMA where he was embraced by the art community because of his evident talent. While he was studying with Ruben Haro, he worked with paper mache. He then moved to Puerto Escondido, continuing to work in handcrafts (alrejas), especially masks and Altorelievos as well as working on an art installation of wax and colors for “The Barfly”, a bar in Escondido, Mexico.

He next moved to Rome and presented his first collective exhibition of arts and crafts. From Rome, he moved to London for more study at the prestigious Saint Martin College but found, within academia, a lack of creative freedom. Technique was taught but it was rare to find a professor that allowed the individual self-expression. Luckily, Gonzalo found work with an international film school and worked commercially for a modeling agency as a photographer. During this time he was still presenting private exhibitions in London galleries. He moved to Paris and, while in Paris Gonzalo made conceptual installations for private groups of culture associations such as La Gangai and Zig-Zag. This was a movement of squatters in Europe that gave artists the opportunity to expose their art in large spaces, similar to the Christiana, Denmark artists' community. What was interesting to Gonzalo was finding more talent than he had experienced in the other commercial galleries at that time. This was in 1997-98. He found artists creating perfect images of the human head out of wax; very impressive, high quality and realistic while at the same time being completely original in creative design. He had great admiration for this type of creativity.

Then he moved to Switzerland where he continued to have showings. In Lausanne, Switzerland, Gonzalo began working with the “telas de alambre". This technique of forming metal wire mesh into art allowed his work to be much more detailed than normally seen and he displayed a more popular technique to the public. He worked with movement, lighting and display details which were newly inspired. In Switzerland , Gonzalo also showed his creativity by writing and producing a screen play; this is part of Gonzalo’s future creative vision. He will, in the future, be combining the sculptures, theater and music, using all of his creative genres.

After Switzerland he moved to Berlin and continued with his exhibitions, he found the people in Berlin to be very open to artistic expression. In Berlin he sold more paintings than sculptures. They were done in acrylics with a sensual theme. Gonzalo is a creative artist in all mediums. In Berlin, Gonzalo designed and created clothing for professional dancers. He does not limit himself to one type of art.

After 17 years abroad Gonzalo returned to his home country, Mexico. His first exhibition was in Urapan. There he started working with the Purepecha Indians, who work within traditional clay techniques. Each town in Urapan has different types of clay, firing and endings. He learned at least seven different types of sculpture techniques during this time.

With this interview, Gonzalo would like to express to the public that every art piece has a message of love. With his art he has a desire to show the natural normality of nudity in both the male and the female body. Gonzalo’s wishes are to have his work accepted as art and not be considered erotic or pornographic. He feels that until his audience can see nudity as beauty and as a natural state of the human being they cannot be at peace with their own personal sexuality.

Gonzalo Medellin