ONE

When he talks about drawing, Juan Carlos del Valle often describes one of the guiding principles of tonal understanding: the darker the shadow, the brighter the light. Thus, the physical and metaphysical encounter of darkness and light has been one of the most persistent explorations throughout his career. Juan Carlos suggests human nature as a Whole where love and desire, that is, the animal and the spiritual, coexist simultaneously and ambivalently. So, instead of understanding ourselves as split beings that deny aspects inherent to their essence, the artist proposes that we accept ourselves as a complex and contradictory totality and at the same time as part of an open, interdependent and related system. We are all one, unity is contained in all and everything, both the light and the dark, dwells within each one of us. If we could recognize ourselves in unity, fear of the other, as well as the very concept of otherness, would reveal itself as an illusion.