JOAN PUJOL

Joan Pujol is a Canadian painter born in Sabadell, Spain, in 1948. The following year, in 1949, his parents emigrated to Canada where he studied, initially in Quebec and then after after 1956, in Ontario where he began to study painting. His work was first exhibited in 1968 in Oakville, Ontario. He traveled to Spain in 1970 and remained to live and continue his work. Many exhibitions followed in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and elsewhere in Europe as well as both in Toronto and Montreal where he has lived since 1996.

"Most of my work consists of still lives in small formats depicting subjects found in everyday environments, such as newspaper, a plastic bag, kitchen utensils, etc. I want to paint the texture of things. Newspapers are of special interest to me in this respect because of the superposition of the visual qualities of type or photographic material to the texture of the newspaper itself. In general, my aim is to give sufficient visual information so that the eye can go beyond mere representation of reality and grasp the subject's poetic and emotional quality. I attempt to go beyond the cerebral tendencies of objective realism which would rely solely on technical virtuosity."

"I use oil pigments on a wood panel that has previously been thoroughly varnished and coated with gesso. Once this surface is sanded down to become completely smooth, I outline my subject with a pencil and then I apply the oil pigment with my brushes. I always paint from a real model - working obsessively towards giving light to the subject's specific color, shape, size, volume, form and texture, loading on as much information as I can in each panel. Before proceeding to a painting I always make preparatory pencil or watercolor studies. Occasionally I have produced watercolors by themselves.

I am very fond of the way in which Renaissance masters worked and their technical approach has inspired me as well as that of contemporary masters of realism such as Wyeth or Colville." (GDB)

☁ JOAN PUJOL @ GDB
☁ JOAN PUJOL @ ARTNET