After the success of the first exhibition and his first participation in Art Madrid, proposals soon arrived from other institutions to exhibit in what would be the second solo show. This was done by the cultural center of “Casas Consistoriales de Mazarrón”, which made the proposal to the artist on the same day of the opening at the Léucade Gallery.
This second solo show, “Open Myths” was a challenge for the artist. He would have to have enough work to be able to satisfy the space of Town Halls. This institution consists of two physically differentiated spaces: the basement and the attic.
This exhibition was curated by Pedro López Morales, and was held in March 2017. In the basement, the works of Puerto related to submerged people were shown and on the upper floor all those works with a more personal and psychological tint. Pedro’s work was exceptional and he and the artist managed to captivate the public.
Text by Sofía Martínez, Galería Léucade, for this second solo show.
The psychological footprint
Dizzying is the speed at which the artistic career of Jean Carlos Puerto advances. His work remains in what he wanted to achieve from the beginning, but gradually he expands his technical capacity and his intentionality in each painting. His stitches are more and more psychological, as if they come to life and, while he is working with them from a primal idea, they evolve by themselves and sometimes they sneak into places where Jean Carlos Puerto did not have the ability. intention to arrive. He cannot prevent them from unconsciously blossoming with him and telling us much more than he wants to reveal.
The work of this artist who only achieves success is very intimate. His facet as a psychologist is completely linked to the pictorial, and his paintings are his own couch. While he dedicates his time to them, thanks to his delicate sense of observation, he does his own therapy and they are the ones who listen to his concerns, his fears, his own ghosts …
Without abrupt cuts in his style and with great perseverance, he technically grows without escaping his signs, since the painting of this artist is as if he were under the effects of the filter “Jean Carlos Puerto”, because the tones used do not leave the schemes that he has established in his brushstrokes.
Mythical figures
Characters appear in all the oil paintings that make up “Open myths” except in one, through the human figure we find interstices that cannot be described. All its protagonists are found indoors except those that make up the water series, which even so continue to be indoors, in water, with which a simile could be made with amniotic fluid, thus associating themselves with the need for protection of those characters that he has endowed with mythological names.
He weaves Poseidon, a furious god that no one wants to provoke by his retaliation, thus making a strong character. Mermaids were related to beauty in mythology, but perhaps we would have to go back less and go to psychoanalysis, where they identify with a hidden sexual desire, and he carefully spun Tritons, messenger gods that he could have painted with sea water, in watercolors.
This winner of numerous awards, whose works can be found in museums such as the Museo Casa Ibáñez (Olula del Río, Almería), or the Fundación AMIAB in Albacete, after having triumphed at Art Madrid -one of the most important international fairs- naked his soul in this exhibition of the Town Hall of Mazarrón to share with us the inner world that Antonio López encouraged him to dare to show.
Open myths
In this exhibition of open myths, family myths also appear, the concept of “family as a system” investigating it through the systemic school of psychology. In the systemic approach, the family is a system where its members are in constant interaction. The symptom represents what is not said, and would act as a message that Jean Carlos represents in a material way. Sometimes a symptom causes the family to focus all their attention on that problem and leave the rest in the background. With all this, Puerto also wants to talk about other types of myths: relatives, which vary in each family, are beliefs that all members share. All his works have a great suggestive force that leave a psychological mark, a sobering mark sewn into our skin.
Sofia Martinez Hernandez
Art critic