Javier Calleja

Javier Calleja is a Spanish contemporary artist born in Málaga in 1971. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Granada and later returned to his hometown, where he currently lives and works. Calleja's work is characterized by his characters with large eyes and exaggerated proportions, which invite the viewer to enter a figurative universe of naiveté and simplicity. His paintings and sculptures are usually small and full of humor and poetry. His characters may seem childish but contain a critical and reflective undertone about contemporary society and culture. The artist is reluctant to talk about his work, preferring that the viewer interpret it and find their own meaning in it. According to Calleja, "good magicians never explain their tricks," and his work is like magic, brief but intense, capable of transporting us to imaginary worlds and making us reflect on our own reality. Calleja's work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, including Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States. He has received various awards and recognitions for his work, and his works are part of important contemporary art collections around the world. With his unique and recognizable style, Javier Calleja has become one of the most prominent contemporary artists in Spain and on the international scene. He has been fond of drawing since childhood. His great-great-grandfather was the first teacher Pablo Picasso had in his hometown. He trained for ten years to become a gymnast and participated in several Spanish championships. After retiring from sports, he studied Physical Education Teaching and then earned a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Granada. He worked as a Physical Education teacher in secondary schools in Andalusia before dedicating himself to art. Among his influences, Calleja cites artists such as Magritte and Rothko, and movements such as Pop Art, Surrealism, and Minimalism. Critics define his work as pop and kawaii (cute) and highlight the influence of Japanese manga. For years, he created minimal works due to lack of space and to reduce production costs. In his paintings, drawings, and sculptures, he deploys the aesthetic conventions of cartoons and children's book illustrations in his pursuit of simplicity and immediacy. Striking colors are a constant in his work, as is the distortion of scale. His characters, whom he considers small versions of himself, are recognized by their disproportionately large heads, naive air and enormous watery eyes, in which facial features with perfectly combined gradients contrast with flat backgrounds of a single color and are accompanied by ironic, critical or absurd phrases written in English. His works are often exhibited in an almost chaotic order or semi-hidden, inviting the viewer to make an effort to search for them in usually unused spaces such as electrical outlets, baseboards, alarms or gaps next to the ceiling. Also the author of medium-sized and even smaller formats, known as art toys with a long Asian tradition.