About
Ni de aqui ni de alla.
I'm Fernando Javier, a multidisciplinary artist based in Monterrey, Mexico, working primarily in acrylic and oil on canvas. My paintings are paired with narrative prose, so each piece functions less like a single image and more like the opening page of a story — one that centers on trauma, survival, and faith, and the exact moment a person moves from a state of peril into one of grounded realization.
I didn't arrive at this practice in a straight line. I studied graphic design, then chemical engineering, and spent years working outside of art altogether. In 2015, my life and career were disrupted in a way that took years to recover from. Returning to painting afterward wasn't a hobby picked back up — it was an act of reclamation. The body of work I've made since has become an ongoing, multi-canvas narrative arc, tracking what it feels like to be uprooted and to slowly, imperfectly, find your footing again.
The desert shows up again and again in my paintings — as a boundary, a threat, and eventually, a sanctuary. I'm drawn to its starkness: the way it strips everything down to essentials, the way light and shadow fall across it in such sharp contrast. I build my compositions around precise symmetry, using that visual balance to hold difficult subject matter without letting it spill into chaos. Every canvas is made to stand on its own, but also to serve as the direct visual catalyst for an accompanying essay — figurative painting and reflective prose, working as one storytelling medium rather than two separate practices.
What I'm ultimately after is an honest picture of endurance — the scars alongside the quiet moments of illumination, the fear alongside the grounded peace that eventually follows it. If you spend time with the work, I hope it offers you a mirror rather than just a message: a place to recognize your own "in-between" seasons, and the strength it took to move through them.
My work has been shown at Museo Coahuila y Texas and featured in THRWD Magazine (Dallas, TX). I'm always open to conversations about commissions, exhibitions, and collaborations — you can reach me through the contact page.
