René Gonzalez Cost Rican, b. 1983

When I first saw René’s work, I was struck by the pure painterly quality and the optimism of his storytelling, in direct contrast to the challenges of his early life as a refugee in Canada and Costa Rica.

 

 

I was born to political refugees in Canada as my parents fled the El Salvador war. Eventually, my mother took me and my sister to her home country of Costa Rica, where she’s originally from, when I was ten years old.

 

There, I explored different creative outlets, and it took me almost a decade to carve a path for myself inside the small art community and become a full-time painter. Unfortunately, there weren’t any art galleries in Costa Rica then. I knew a couple of people who tried, but they eventually had to close the spaces as the enterprise wasn’t feasible. However, I think some institutions there now showcase contemporary talent, so seeing how the art scene is growing there is excellent. 

 

In time, I found myself with a small group of very supportive patrons and a mentor who had helped artists around the world find and build up their artistic path. He suggested I get an art degree to expand my practice. Saying he would help me navigate this, I was asked; if I could do whatever I wanted, ‘Where would I want to go?’. I remember being initially reluctant to open up about long-abandoned goals I had once concluded were unrealistic fantasies. But, being pressed to be honest about it, I was able to express my lifelong desire to try and make it as an artist in a big city with a thriving art scene, to exhibit my paintings in art galleries, and to be able to share my work with people. I don’t think I had ever even said it out loud. A few months later, I was off to London to undertake a BA in fine art. I put up my last show in San Jose and used my earnings to pay for my first year of university. I have since been part of many art exhibitions worldwide, including solo shows in Paris and London. These accomplishments are still significant to me. Undoubtedly, much of it was luck, and newer ambitions always replace goals. But, I nevertheless have fought hard to make it to where I am today, and I’m so grateful to have been allowed to overcome my initial self-doubt.

 

 

I do not in any way come from an artistic household. My father is a judo instructor, and my mother is a sociologist. I always enjoyed creative activities, but my strong commitment to art began more specifically when we moved to Costa Rica because certain media and content weren’t available there. I found it hard to adapt initially because I’ve always gravitated toward literature, books with artistic illustrations, movies, and any storytelling media. This was before the internet was even a thing, and back then, it felt like a smaller place, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it was just a different kind of existence than I was used to. I started drawing every day at the time and pursued artistic practices until I eventually found a place in the graffiti and mural painting community there.

 

After a few years, I found my true calling was painting. After trying all kinds of outlets, painting on canvas just felt right. I loved the idea of “encoding” a narrative and a particular type of “mood” in an image. Most of all, I enjoyed hanging a piece on a wall and having people observe it, paying attention and interacting with an expression, commentary, and even with questions. I find the dialogue between the artist, the art, and the viewer incredibly gratifying. This sense has only grown in the age of social media. Painting is also interesting in its immediate impact; it’s all there as soon as you glance at it, and you can immediately love or hate it. But it can also be unpacked and explored with further inspection, perhaps infinitely. 

 

I would put together a series of exhibitions with a group of artists with increasing degrees of success as time passed. We would occupy unused spaces like a house or a locale in a freshly constructed building, filling the rooms with our art. So yeah, that was the start of my career as a painter.

 

 

I studied at the City & Guilds of London Art School; I came to London in 2012 to start my education in Fine Art and graduated in 2015. University was an exceptional experience for me. Having just arrived from Costa Rica, where we don’t have them, in London, I went into art and historical museums and contemporary galleries and visited different architectural marvels for the first time in my life. The school took us to Cologne during the first month of classes. All these were completely new experiences for me. This may sound a bit exaggerated, but I had never seen work from classical art history, modern art, or an established contemporary artist in person, and places like the National Gallery and the British Museum were an entirely new experience for me. This change reshaped my output as I shifted subject matter, technique, and taste. It was an overload of information at the start, and I still feel like I’m playing catch-up sometimes, but it’s always felt thrilling.

 

The other students seemed to understand more about the art world than I did, so I had to be extra focused. Where I come from, we weren’t aware of many platforms and institutions that make up what we know as the Western art world. City & Guilds, I now realise, was uniquely competent in guiding us through all this, providing very different perspectives of how to go about one’s practice and the various paths available to other kinds of careers in the arts. Robin Mason, the head of painting, was a great mentor and a wonderful person to know as a friend. All the tutors and staff were so knowledgeable and engaging, and despite their different approaches and view, it felt like one big family at the time. It was like walking into a different universe for me, and I wasn’t used to being such a small fish in what is maybe the biggest pond, but I loved the excitement of it all. I’m incredibly proud of being a City & Guilds alumni, and to this day, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more at home anywhere in my life than here in London.

 

 

I get my ideas from real life. I paint from photography, films, and the occasional direct reference to art history. Part of my process is creating a textural ground with a couple of colours following the suggestions made by the paint marks. Then, I will go through my pictures, looking for images that reveal a particular event in my life or a location that was special for me, that resonates with the background colours I’ve painted, to start building up the basis for a composition. I’m also not a stranger to browsing the internet for photos or imagery I might find inspiring. There’s no single way I go about my process; sometimes, I design things from my imagination. But, it’s usually a mixture of painterly improvisation and painting from pictures or real life.

 

 

So many influences. I do reference iconography from art history in some of my works. I love the Renaissance, Baroque, and Modernism. You can never go wrong with the greats like Giotto, Cezanne, or Gauguin. I look at many Flemish tapestries, medieval landscapes, decorative patterns like the work of William Morris and his workshop, and much more. I find it interesting how these influences affect my work as I’m not classically trained, so I’m unaware of the techniques these masters used. I can’t mimic it very well, which is good because my work always looks like my own style. I do constantly look at classical works when I paint, though. Film is another significant influence because it effectively creates atmosphere and feeling through visuals. Animation, too. Lynch, Scott, Kurosawa, Coppola, Scorsese, Miyazaki, and many more, always make me want to paint, to create something that provokes thought and makes us feel different emotions.

 

 

At the start of my creative process, I try to lock into an emotion, something very personal to me, and I’ll try to get inside that moment. Usually, something feels vital to me, like a deep sadness or sense of wonder, and I’ll follow that thought as it starts to reveal imagery to me. Whether it’s Arthurian knights or the indigenous forest spirits of the Selk’nam, I take a lot of inspiration from the idea of archetypes and the symbols found in different myths, folklore, and legends. I often distil the thought into symbols representing the various aspects of a story I’m trying to tell. For example, the fox imagery came about when I was deported because of a technical error in my visa application. It took me almost a year to return to London and my British wife. Three months later, the pandemic hit. This had quite an impact on my career. I thought of the tattered foxes that roam about in the streets of London at night as outsiders in their own homes, just trying to get by and ultimately adapting to any circumstance. In my head, I’m always telling a story in my paintings. So that’s why, for example, the fox is in many of my recent works. It’s playing my character. The woman is my wife, and the deer, owls, and felines are specific to me. Despite the origin of these concepts, they’re not addressed directly. I’m a pretty light-hearted and joyous individual, and my works, I think, have a bit more of a romantic feel and work best with a healthy dose of ambiguity. Sometimes they can still have a certain ‘intensity,’ but they’re never too serious. I want the fox to be happy and have adventures as he explores the mysteries of his enchanting world. 

 

 

I love many contemporary artists, Sasnal, Doig and Cluvie Pierre, Rosa Loy, Kiki Smith, and Hernan Bas; the list is long and ever-changing. But I don’t think this is very evident in my art. My painting rarely reflects the painters that influence it. It is probably more obviously reminiscent of my muralist background, graffiti's graphic nature, or the illustrative qualities in fantasy, children’s books, and Japanese animation. Nevertheless, I still learn so much from all the artists I admire.

 

 

For me, very. Colour is probably half of what my art is about. A palette can make or break a piece. Some of my favourite canvases I’ve made aren’t that complex or detailed, nor do they contain too many elements in the design. But the colours are sufficiently evocative and have an appealing balance that feels right. It’s also what I struggle with the most. It isn’t always obvious why certain combinations work better or are more attractive or enjoyable. When something doesn’t feel right, I enjoy laying down colour to create resonating harmonies or contrasts with other pigments, slowly building it all up. It’s a lot of push and pull to navigate the colours in composition, and it can be both the most frustrating and rewarding aspect of painting at different times.

 

I paint on at least a couple of works simultaneously, sometimes up to five or six, but it's hard to balance. Some pictures will inevitably progress faster than others. Working on a single piece at a time can become too slow and self-indulgent. Working on a few canvases keeps me looser, and I obsess less about the details. 

 

 

The only thing that matters to me is that the viewer has some reaction to the work. If there’s no reaction, the art is not engaging to that particular individual, and personally, as an artist, that’s not a good sign. Nothing is for everyone, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t care when people have at least some reaction to my work. Of course, I care, it’s great to see how my paintings affect people, and I love it when they like it. People often interpret my pictures differently than I do, but I never want to discourage their take. Any interpretation has some validity, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else’s understanding is somehow more interesting than mine. I’ll usually try to avoid explaining my ideas behind a piece too explicitly, but I will point to some suggestive element in the painting to hint at some of my thoughts.

 

WHAT OTHER INTERESTS DO YOU HAVE? 

 

Well, I’m a movie buff, whatever format they come in. Any genre can work if it’s well-written. I love a good horror movie, and I could probably talk about film and art all day. I love reading about art history, philosophy, fantasy, folklore, and science fiction. I recently read Homo Deus and La Belle Sauvage, which I thought were great. I also went to see the play of the latter, which I very much enjoyed. I’m a fan of theatre, ballet, and contemporary dance. We recently went to the Messums Wiltshire ‘Festival of Dance,’ it was so exciting and fun. I’m a fan of jazz, classical music, indie rock, and hip-hop, so my playlists tend not to be cohesive. My favourite thing to do is see some art at a museum or gallery in central London, find somewhere to have a good coffee and enjoy a nice walk around a park.