García Castejón, Joan

Elche

1945. Born on December 17 in Elche, in the province of Alicante, Spain. 1963. He moved to Valencia and attended the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in this city as a free student. 1965. He paints in the south of France and travels to Paris. Collective exhibition at the Ateneo de Valencia. 1966. First individual exhibition at the Mateu Gallery, Valencia. “Youthful moment full of experiences (first individual exhibition in the now legendary Sala Mateu, followed by another exhibition at the Ateneo de Valencia; revealing trip to Paris; first contacts – in 1966 – for the subsequent formation of the Grup d'EIx… ), in which Castejón already announces what will be his peculiar manner: precision of line and easy ease to achieve, accentuating intensities in his anthropomorphic theme, expressive effects – see his heads and his nudes with a vigorous register. Once his passion for drawing was announced – 'the most obsessive temptation of the spirit', in Valéry's opinion, possibly suggested by Degas's graphic fervor -, Castejón's biographical career suffers a traumatic attack. Imprisoned as an anti-Francoist in several Spanish prisons –Valencia and Teruel (1967-69), and later in the Canary Islands (1971) he would make more than two thousand drawings during his captivity, among which there are some four hundred portraits” (Juan Ángel Blasco Carrascosa). 1969. “The Grup d'Elx. Agulló, Castejón, Coll and Sixto (with the indisputable presence and solid contribution of Ernesto Contreras, poet, critic and theorist who also played a special role in relation to the task undertaken jointly) resort – selecting, restructuring and interpreting in their respective works – to the iconographic repertoire of the 'civilization of images', from the point of view of a critique of the growing 'objectification of the human'” (Juan Ángel Blasco Carrascosa). 70's. In October, he arrives in the Canary Islands as part of the theater group La Cárátula. He marries Paca and settles on these islands. He successively exhibits his work, whose most representative samples are: Las Palmas, in '73, with the series on García Márquez's book One Hundred Years of Solitude, (Sala Pecanins, Barcelona. Doble L, València). Aritza Gallery, Bilbao. Punto Gallery, Valencia. Gallery 11, Alicante. Colón Museum and Vegueta Gallery, Las Palmas, etc. 1974 Since this year he lives and works in Dènia. From then on his work began to be represented in museums and private collections. 80s. “At the beginning of the 1980s, Castejón replaced his crayon drawings on paper with others in which oil predominated. Beginning of a different season – open door – in which his painting becomes more colorful; change of cycle behind beauty, of a non-figuration that will hardly elude that reference faithfully held for so many years regarding the figure” (Juan Ángel Blasco Carrascosa). ARCO’82, Madrid. Lucas Gallery, Gandia and Valencia. Manfred Schüller, Zurich. Palais des Arts, Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Toulouse. 1992. Castejón, Lecasse Foundation, Alcoi. Rosalía Sender Gallery, Valencia. 1993. Public University of Pamplona. Tribute to Miguel Hernández, Toulouse and Sorbonne University, Paris. Delivery of the Key to the City. Mont De Marsan. 1994. To Goya, Casa de Goya, Bordeaux. Homage to the Montgó –sculpture–, Dénia. Reward the Tardor. “Castejón, as far as the sensitive and formal values of the work are concerned, develops an essentially classical language that conveys – apart from the specific referential function – a direct appeal to the values of artisticity assimilated in the everyday sphere from the categories of prestige (figuration and realistic composition). The volumetric modulation of bodies and objects reinforces spatiality understood as an important part of the theatricalization to which every reality that is observed is subjected. But it is essentially a 'symbolic theatricalization' whose space-time coordinates assume such a capacity for abstraction that – going beyond the concreteness of the historical reference – they evidently enhance the ideological connotations” (Román de la Calle). 1998. Series on García Lorca, Dènia and Galerie des Franciscains, Saint-Nazaire. He is named Dènia's adopted son. 1999. Castejón. Gravats, traveling exhibition through the towns of the La Marina Alta region (Alacant). Joan Castejón. Drawings, BANCAIXA Foundation. Recent work, Girarte. Honorary Member of the Institute of Regional Studies of the Marina Alta. Adopted son of Dénia. Dénia City Council. 2001. Provincial Council of Alicante-Lecasse, itinerant 2003. Elche, Alcoy, Alicante, Dénia. Honorary Member of the Institute of Regional Studies of Baix Vinalopó. 2003. Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum, Chile. Spanish Cultural Center. Montevideo. Uruguay. 2004. Museum of the University of Alicante. “The 'world' in which Castejón's work takes place is a world of contrasts where perhaps only love is present.