Juan Medina was born in Mexico City in 1950.
Medina is an artist who works on a grand scale. His
paintings have been exhibited throughout Mexico and the
Unites States, including in such cities as San Francisco, Los
Angeles, New York, Seattle and New Orleans.
One is immediately struck by the extraordinary three-
dimensional effect Medina achieves in his paintings. His use
of trompe l’oeil is startling as architectural elements seem to
project from the picture plane. Placed in these seemingly
concrete settings are figures that appear at once to be of the
flesh and of the spirit. Medina’s imagery stems from the
subconscious and raises questions about pour perceptions of
spatial and chronological reality.
His winged figures suggest a quality of existence found in
the “artistic a spirit”, a spirit desirous to free itself from
material concerns of day-to–day existence. The winged
figure is the embodiment of the individual wanting to serve
as deeper, more intangible need inside himself; that of his
creativity and imagination.
In his paintings, Medina takes preconceived ideas of
reality and turns them inside out; much like Alice
experienced through the looking glass. He utilizes
numerous references to artistic and architectural styles
throughout history. These elements, in juxtaposition with
contemporary models raise issues of the relativity of time.
He also creates doubt in perception of spatial reality as
figures seem to break through the composition's borders
and occupy another dimension.