Remi Cárdenas

It was a crayon. I wasn’t yet in school when I first held a crayon in my hand and knew that it felt right. I don’t remember the color but holding it in my hand and using it to express felt very right. And so the story continued. I entered school and became known for my drawing talent and thus the illustrator of many school projects having to do with the lush natural vegetation of my home city of Xalapa, Veracruz in Mexico. I started studying painting and graphic design at the University of Veracruz, but soon realized that I identified more with a more traditional approach. In search of a more universal approach, I studied at The Academy of Realist Arts in Toronto, the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington DC, the Arts Students’ League and the former Grand Central Academy in New York.

And so the long-held persistent passion to draw, colour and paint, became my vocation. My love for the natural world had made me consider pursuing a path in biology or physics but I realized that art combined both of these as I believe that my work focuses on the natural world. It constantly fascinates me, so I find great joy in sharing it in my work and when others look and truly feel the presence of nature and light in it. Of course, my work entails looking at many paintings and painters, and these are reflected in my work but so are the rhymes of the poetry I like to read and the cadences of the music to which I listen. Although it may be unusual, science also infuses my painting, drawing and etc. because its mysteriousness evokes the sense of awe that I believe every good artwork should incite and which I hope also emanates from mine. I aspire to be that artist whose work is contemplated over a good cup of tea, with all of its fragrance and subtleties.