BREATHING WATER
Jaime Fournier lives and works in New York since 2015, as an artist-architect. His artistic career started precisely in NYC during the early 80’s during the frenzy of the Neo-Expressionism, the Transvanguardia and the new Neo-Figurative Painters of the Metropolis. The day before he left for Barcelona in 1983, he was selected to participate in a group show titled WOMEN at the now-defunct Martin Molinary Gallery, reaffirming his passion for a life dedicated to art. Already settled in Spain, he was exposed to a brave new world lined along the NY-Madrid-Berlin axis. In Barcelona, earning his living wages as a Madonnero, he exhibited at Joan de Serrallonga after a year of unstoppable labor, painting day and night with his bohemian friends in Las Ramblas. Back in San Juan PR, he became part of the MSA underground art scene, moving quickly up the ladder to sold-out shows at the Luigi Marrozzini and Botello Galleries, as the enfant-terrible.
He won First Prize in the 1988 AVCO Art Competition after a controversy that spanned critics, newspapers, fellow artists and jurors. The winning entry, ‘Ignaciana’ is now part of the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), while another work ’Los que curvan mi osamenta’ was acquired by the LATAM section of the Organization of the American States in DC In 1992. As a result of a consistent praxis, Jaime participated in several solo-exhibits and group shows by invitation, including the Santo Domingo, Cuenca and Monaco Biennials. His paintings have been positively covered by critics and his art has been the subject of numerous articles and amateur short-feature films in Europe.
After two decades of working hermetically and silently without galleries, branding, patrons or dogmas, Jaime is back in the public realm, re-emerging without the crashing noise and without the luxury of time. Now at Petrus, Jaime Fournier has many stories to share and he does it the only way he knows how to do it: through visceral brushstrokes. After many years of experimenting with different media and subjects, all within a shifting global zeitgeist, his new paintings dwell in the comfort of the normative and figurative, albeit seasoned by a sublime bloody wrist slice. His paintings are the new narrative. His memories meet the canvas and you can listen carefully how they murmur, while contemplating his art.