About
Javier León Pérez

Originally from Seville and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts there, Javier León Pérez specialised in ceramics and sculpture before completing a research MA in art and production at the Complutense University of Madrid.


At a very young age, he was already an assistant in a sculpture workshop, where he encountered sturdy materials like bronze. Upon discovering a text about Buddhist philosophy and Zen principles, he became aware of the fragile and ephemeral nature of existence and all things. After that, this new enlightenment would inspire his artistic approach. In order to give shape to this, the artist sometimes employs painting and sometimes sculpture or installations. The key element of his work is the ambivalence between the underlying order of the universe and fluidity, between individual elements and the whole that they create together.


His pictorial works, in which he multiplies different points, evoke the idea of matter, composed of tiny indivisible particles that form a whole. They are the result of a repetitive process, a sort of daily personal ritual akin to a mantra; a sacred formula that requires intense physical and mental concentration, an exercise that involves centring oneself again and going back to one’s roots before the work is ready.

However, another material – Japanese paper known as ‘washi’ – is at the heart of his work. Javier León Pérez sublimates and models this traditional hand-made paper, which is slightly translucent and has a subtly irregular texture with a pleasant feel. Traditional production techniques are passed down from generation to generation and included on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.


The artist establishes an intimate and tactile relationship with this plant-fibre paper, which allows him to develop his own poetic language. By folding and cutting, multiplying small, individual units that are juxtaposed in a very precise order, calling to mind the inherent internal structures of the world, such as the petals of a flower, he creates a jumble of extremely fluid organic shapes, like roots naturally undulating in rhizomes.


The paper absorbs energy, rises in waves or forms spiral-shaped compositions, like vortices arising from two distinct dynamics: one static, the other in rotation. The artist is inspired by nature – its shapes and its rhythms – without copying it.