Artist Residency: Jonathan Torres

Jonathan Torres

 Articulating nature’s timeless, ephemeral dances.  

As a sculptor, Jonathan Torres honors his family name by stacking life experiences in a towering, articulated collection of appreciations that delve into humankind’s role within and against nature.  His quest's foundation was laid in early childhood, when he accompanied his father on days-long hunting ventures and joined his mother for guided hikes.  From those days a vivid memory lingers... While walking through the shadows of a coffee plantation, a chance encounter with a cicada’s exuvia captured the attention of eight-year-old Jonatan, prompting a deep-seated fascination for insects and, specifically, their intricate exoskeletons.  His young mind pondered, “How can something so precious, so meticulously crafted, be unceremoniously left behind, abandoned to disintegration and oblivion?”. Bewilderment led to introspection, analysis, and a lifelong passion for applied research that that now inform his art. Today, much like his childhood memory, Jonathan’s articulated sculptures linger at the mythical threshold between the subconscious and conscious.  Their conception, creation, and planned demise spark the startling realization that just as insects molt, human psyches molt, and even civilizations must eventually molt.

Jonathan’s formal training draws from an academic legacy of industrial design, delving into the intricacies of constructive methodologies and the use of materials including polymers, vitro-ceramics, and other man-made components.  In a later pivot towards the arts, his path led to the School of Fine Arts at the University of Costa Rica where he was encouraged to pursue sculpture as his expressive conduit.  After mastering classical themes and techniques, his inner voice guided him away from the confines of tradition and towards frank innovation.

His initial experimentations were centered on rubbish, finding and transforming discarded elements into highly polished pieces. Refinished and recovered, these items were no longer recognizable as refuse and became the foundation of his aesthetic exoskeletal techno-creations. About seven years ago, inspired by trends in Europe and South America, he shifted his focus to incorporate organic materials, thus adding depth to his work with the integration of biopolymers. His self-produced agar laminates brought volume and vitality to the two-dimensional schematics and drawings that preface the sculpting process.

Jonathan Torres, recently honored with the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) Award at Austria’sARS Electronica Festival 2023, continues to enrich the dialogue between art, civilization, and natural decay. His work, an amalgamation of origami, kirigami, robotics, and mechanics, culminates in the creation of organic artifacts. These artifacts, intentionally left to decompose in nature, echo the transient beauty of a cicada's shed skin encountered in his youth that kindled reflections on life, transition, death, and rebirth.

As an established artist,Torres grapples with humanity's complex role within nature—we are at once dwellers and guardians, victims and perpetrators, spectators and protagonists.It is this multifaceted relationship, straddling the organic and the manufactured, that garnered him a place in Hotel Belmar’s Artist Residency program. There, he has conceived 'ESPIRAL,' a motorized artifact that interprets the act of germination. This kinetic sculpture exposes the Fibonacci sequence's spiraling patterns, rendering nature's subtle rhythms visible. Composed of helicoidal paper crests set within a wooden framework and activated by light sensors, the sculpture performs a hypnotic dance under the glow of onlookers’ cell phone lights.Unlike his more transient works, 'ESPIRAL' is designed for further longevity, promising to mesmerize many within the Monteverde community and its visitors.

Artist Statement

“At Hotel Belmar, I have embraced the Art Residency as an opportunity torecalibrate my appreciation of the forest and its underlying intricacies.  Unencumbered by the interruptions and demandsof the quotidian, I have relished in a sense of complete freedom.  Roaming through nature, I’ve followed pathsand insects, traced the canopy’s filigree, and swayed to the dance of flora andfauna.  This has been a refreshingexperience, an unexpected respite in a land that I last visited more than 15years ago.  I leave marveled andinspired, anticipating the creative reverberations that will inform futureprojects.  Monteverde will remain within,like a childhood memory that is revisited with heart and soul.”

ARTIST BIO

Jonathan Torres, a graduateof the University of Costa Rica, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with aspecialization in sculpture. He is currently pursuing a Master's degree inVisual Arts and serves as a professor at his alma mater within the schools ofPlastic Arts, Biology, and Medical Technologies. As a Costa Rican, he drawsinspiration from his country's rich biodiversity and exhibits a profoundrespect for the processes of creation and destruction, life and death, and theresulting conflict between the raw and the refined. His initial venture intoindustrial design and technology has laid the foundation for hiscreations—artifacts that replicate the movement of living creatures. Theserobotic sculptures, which blur the lines between technology and nature, areexclusively crafted from responsibly sourced natural materials. Jonathan’sorganic animatronics are ultimately left to decompose,symbolizing how modernity’s implicit butflawed perception of permanence will eventually yield to a new order that is yetto emerge, yet to grasp.

For more information,background, and exhibitions:

WEB: https://artebioinspirad0.wixsite.com/misitio

BEHANCE: https://www.behance.net/jonathantorres52

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jonathantorresescultura

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