Bio

Julián Jaramillo Torres began his artistic studies at the mere age of 13. In 1986, he moved to Paris to study at the École National Supérieur des Beaux-Arts and at the studio of the French painter François Chatenay. In 1997, he continued his artistic journey in Italy at the State Institute d’Arte di Forlì. After a brief time back in Paris as an artistic consultant for American retail company GAP, he continued his studies in Milan in 2003 with a Fine Arts BA at the Brera Academy, an institution with which he has continued to collaborate on a variety of projects.

The work of Jaramillo Torres consists of impactful images with an engraving-like quality. His pieces showcase the artist's fascination with the everyday objects that surround us and the essential role they have come to play in our lives, especially during a pandemic.

A pivotal moment in his journey as an artist was when he discovered the verb "abrade". "Abrading", put simply, is the art of "removing". An art that not only requires a certain technical expertise but is above all an existential path. The artist describes his procedure as follows:

Starting from the soft and smooth surface, which I identify as the principle of culture while digging I found a way to bring to light questions and solutions that give meaning to the subtle thread of memory that holds all the pieces of a person's experience together.

Torres' process is both simple and complex: he starts with the green paper used for advertising posters and tries to find the image by scratching the surface. This technique is much like an excavation: it's an act of "bringing out" and of taking away, rather than an act of creation; it is a process of discovery.

The artist currently lives and works in Milan, Italy.