José Antonio Suárez Londoño (or JASL as he calls himself) is one of Colombia’s most revered contemporary artists, known for his dedication to drawing. After initially studying biology at the Universidad de Antioquia, he subsequently trained in Geneva at the Ecole Supérieure d’Art Visuel. In the late 1980s, he began drawing on a daily basis and has pursued this practice ever since, imbuing his work with a diaristic quality. Londoño was influenced by a ‘drawing boom’ that South America experienced in the 1960s-70s, which positioned its artistic scene in contrast to the European and North American avant-garde, and gave rise to a return to figurative compositions. On Fridays for example, he draws portraits with a group of colleagues now known as ‘Taller 7’, which promotes the discipline of drawing within the Medellín artistic community. Londoño’s work, often on a small scale, gained international recognition in 2012 when the Drawing Center in New York showed his Yearbooks, an exhibition that examined his 15-year project to create drawings based on a book or series of books that the artist read over the course of a year. A year later, his drawings were exhibited at the 55th Venice Biennale, The Encyclopedic Palace, where he translated into images the diaries of Franz Kafka. Today his work can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Albertina in Vienna, The British Museum, as well as in other institutions. Far from the centres of the contemporary art market and major museums, JASL still lives in his native Medellín, in the mountainous region north-west of Bogota. His work is both solitary and alert to the art of the past and of his contemporaries. He draws every day, inspired by a myriad of sources – visual, textual or musical – and producing images filled with poetry and observation. He devotes particular attention to the choice of paper, which he buys and collects wherever he goes, and to his drawing materials, often bought during his yearly North American, and rarer European, trips. Some motifs recur frequently in his production: images of art or artists of the past, especially Degas, images of wolves (which seem to correlate with the current state of politics), men tied up, blots, maps, and music. The present drawing brings some of these themes together: the mapping of undefined cities, one which resembles an unsolvable labyrinth and a mountainous or river landscape (depending on how the sheet is turned) filled with the shapes of wolves inscribed with the names of musicians: female on one side (Jane Birkin, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, etc.), male on the other side (Lou Reed, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, etc.). Londoño admits that music has been incredibly influential in his work, inspiring it but also providing a comfortable cocoon in which to isolate himself from the world, allowing him to leave everything out and concentrate on drawing.

acquired from the artist by Ordovas (London) (for exhibition 7 June - 3 August 2019); Gift to the Samuel Courtauld Trust by Ordovas, 2019

Always Drawing Drawing Always, Ordovas Gallery, London, 07/06/2019-03/08/2019

Always Drawing Drawing Always, Ordovas Gallery, London, 2019
cat. no. 98
pp. 4-8, 106
ill. 98 on p. 90

Watermark: Watermark: Recto, right centre, letters flanking a diamond quartered by vertical lines and crosses: "GVA" and "RRO" (she same Guarro mark here: http://www.watermarks.info/todoi.htm).

Inscription: Recto: right half of the drawing is split in half, along the centre line on both sides are names of musicians in graphite: “JANIS.JOPLIN”, “ARETHA.F”, “NINA.SIMONE”, “CHABELA.VARGAS”, “AMY.W.P.SMITH”, “NEIL.YOUNG”, “DAVID.C”, “S.S.B.N.”, “KURT.K”, “LOU.REED”, “SERGE.G”, “S.SIDLAY”, “AGUSTIN.LARA”; below are wolves, each individually labelled in graphite: “M.FAITHful”, “JANE Bin”, “ANITA Pallen”, “COURTNEY.L.”, “EDITH.P”, “ch.WATTS”, “KEITH R.”, “B.JONES”, “MICK.J”, “R.WOOD”, “M.TAYLOR”; between the legs of two wolves on the left in graphite is “KIN” and “BERG”; flanking the wolves on the right in graphite are “i was a bird / who can sing” and “but i can not / sing now”. On small rectangular piece of paper laid down on the artist’s mount just under the centre lower edge of the drawing: graphite: “98.”. Verso (hidden under artist’s mount, visible via transmitted light): upper right corner, pen: first line illegible, possibly a signature, below is dated “2017”. Artist’s mount: lower centre, graphite, artist’s initials flanking his stamp: “J.A” and “S.L” and below dated “2017”.

Stamp: Artist's mount, lower centre, black ink, an oval with the name around the edges with a small star at upper centre: "JOSE.ANTONIO" along the upper edge and ".SUAREZ.LONDOÑO." along the lower edge.

Collector's mark: n/a.