Jose Antonio Suarez Londono
Plana
Original Five-color Lithograph with hand-coloring and Chine Collé on Thai Kozo / White Arches Cover
Year: 2005
Edition: B.A.T of 20
Publisher: Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Paper Size: 14 x 20 inches (35.56 × 50.80 cm)
Signed, dated and stamped to lower center
Publisher's Dry Stamp to lower left margin
Gallery-issued COA provided
*Could come framed. Please inquire.
José Antonio Suárez Londoño is one of Colombia’s most distinctive contemporary artists, renowned for his highly disciplined practice of drawing, printmaking, and visual diarism. Working largely outside the spotlight of the international art market, he has spent more than four decades developing an intimate and deeply personal body of work characterized by meticulous observation, literary references, and extraordinary technical precision.
Born in Medellín in 1955, Suárez Londoño initially studied biology at the Universidad de Antioquia, graduating in 1977. His scientific training profoundly influenced his artistic practice, fostering a sensitivity to classification, observation, and detail that remains evident throughout his work. He later pursued formal art studies at the École Supérieure d’Art Visuel in Geneva, Switzerland, graduating in 1984 with a degree in fine arts.
Although he had already established a substantial artistic practice, Suárez Londoño developed his signature approach during the mid-1990s. Inspired by literature, daily life, and personal observation, he began filling small notebooks with drawings that responded to books he was reading, experiences he encountered, and images that captured his imagination. This process evolved into a lifelong visual diary, combining text, image, memory, and observation into a unique artistic language.
His most celebrated body of work, known as The Yearbooks, consists of annual notebooks filled with hundreds of drawings documenting objects, landscapes, portraits, decorative patterns, references to art history, and color studies. Functioning as visual autobiographies, these notebooks reveal the artist’s intellectual curiosity and demonstrate his ability to transform everyday observations into poetic meditations. The works often combine scientific precision with literary sensitivity, reflecting influences ranging from natural history and encyclopedic illustration to music, literature, and classical art.
Executed through drawing, etching, engraving, and printmaking, Suárez Londoño’s works are admired for their delicacy, intimacy, and remarkable concentration. His practice has been highly influential for a younger generation of Colombian artists, including Johanna Calle, Mateo López, and Nicolás Paris, who similarly explore drawing, process, and observation as central artistic strategies.
Today, José Antonio Suárez Londoño is recognized internationally as a master draftsman and printmaker whose work bridges art, literature, science, and autobiography through an enduring commitment to the discipline of daily creation.
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