"Reflect, imagine and take action, together with our communities, in order to find balance with the rhythms of nature, through the arts and creative industries."
About
Diego Narvaez was born in Mexico City. He lives and works in Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. Through his paintings, Diego reflects on contemporary landscape while creating visual metaphors of how we, as society, construct reality through sight and how this affects our relationship with the environment.
Narvaez has presented solo exhibitions in important venues in Mexico. Collectively, he has participated in exhibitions related to the environment in USA, Argentina, Spain, Canada and Mexico. Diego has worked immersed in frozen landscapes during art residencies in Iceland (2014) and Antarctica (2012). He is now collaborating with scientists and indigenous artists to address climate change and our relationship with the land.
Project Highlights
Counterpoint Place
Counterpoint Place is a series of landscape paintings that challenge our understanding of the urban and the natural. It presents the boundary between the ever-growing city and remaining natural space in a sublime and sometimes tragic manner. The timeless scenes are charged with mystery and the occasional touch of whimsey. Some of them are dreamlike vistas, while others address bizarre situations that straddle the realm of the possible and the impossible. Counterpoint Place encourages us to reflect on the places we take for granted. It also challenges us to look around, look again, look with fresh eyes on familiar scenery.
Challenges in the Arctic
Challenges in the Arctic: I will create a series of paintings motivated by three sources of inspiration: on-site art experiences, scientific data and community-based knowledge. Through these sources, three topics challenging the coastal communities in the Canadian Arctic will be addressed: the accelerating coastal erosion, the thawing permafrost and the unpredictability of sea ice due to rising temperatures. Collaboration with both First Nations and scientists will be crucial to developing each part of this project.
This project is in a planning stage and there’s no link for the project at the moment. Nevertheless, I have added images that can be related and are part of a previous series, Ineffable Visions, comprising paintings from Antarctica and Iceland.
Project Gallery
