The temporary life of the plastic artist Juan Mejía – Art and Theater – Culture

Juan Mejía has the look of the prophets, the lost look, dirty jeans and leather sandals of a Roman centurion or Nazarene. The staging is impeccable, he just lacks his hair a little longer, a floral shirt, put a daisy on a rifle or open his arms and send his messages of love and brotherhood. Not just sing them. Juan – who among other things has the name of a disciple of Jesus Christ – is sitting on the log of a park with his guitar and sings Kumbaya, a classic of the campsites, a prayer for the world. The video and his voice fill the ‘Temporal’ exhibition at the SN maCarena gallery (calle 26B nº 3-47), in Bogotá.

Juan Mejía is the kind of artist who moves, brings out smiles, overflows with his humor and, at the least expected moment, throws a hook to the liver. ‘Temporal’ was born in quarantine; the idea of ​​camping, tents and bonfires had been drilling into his head for some time. He was thinking of his childhood camping days and his encounter with nature. And also in the confinement and in what happened outside his workshop. He took recycling materials that he had among the remains of his production, and the tents began to appear.

The exhibition is a powerful reflection on the temporality of life, the huts of homeless people under bridges, refugee camps, and the precariousness of a world disconnected from nature and overflowing with plastic garbage. And beyond everything, each piece has the delicacy of the hand of a great artist, the look and precise lines of an architect and the innocence and happiness of a child who paints his ‘little house’.

In one corner of the gallery there is a mattress thrown on the floor, surrounded by empty beer bottles that could undoubtedly be the inside of any of your tents. There is a porcelain bonfire that can be the campsite fire or the stove in a hut. And in another corner there are a lot of buckets full of water. Fire, water and life in the open air.

FERNANDO GÓMEZ ECHEVERRI
CULTURE EDITOR
@LaFeriaDelArte

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