Javier Ruiz presents ‘Quise ser un elefante asustado’ in Paris

Javier Ruiz Pérez navigates the fragility, mental noise, and absurd desire for greatness with his new exhibition, “Quise ser un elefante asustado – I Wanted to Be a Scared Elephant,” which opened on May 15 at Galerie Droste Paris. The title itself is a declaration of intent: an imposing creature that, rather than crushing, trembles. A beautiful, brutal, urgent contradiction.

Ruiz Pérez—born in 1989 in La Carolina, Jaén—has long been pushing the boundaries of figurative painting to the point of verging on sculpture, even delirium. His canvases overflow with matter, raw gestures, fragments of bodies and flowers trapped between wakefulness and sleep. The figures seem to want to emerge from the frame, as if they too wanted to escape the world that contains them.

Inspired by the story The Elephant and the Moon, the artist invites us to question the false dichotomy between power and vulnerability. Because yes, wanting to be strong is a trap. In a system that glorifies toughness and dismisses doubt, Ruiz Pérez chooses to surrender to what makes us truly human: fragility, trembling, broken faith, ridiculous desire.

The result is a visual field where flowers seem to have souls and humans grow like plants confused by the light of a fake sun. There’s something in these paintings reminiscent of Zurbarán’s baroque saints, of the impossible perspective games of Las Meninas, but with an Ionesque, almost theatrical vibe, where beauty decomposes to be reborn as something twisted, tender, real.

Ruiz works from found images—photos, screenshots, fragments of digital chaos—which he assembles without hiding the trick. His compositions are like theatrical collages, small scenes from a new and absurd cult where faith, dance, and failure coexist without hierarchy.

“I Wanted to Be a Scared Elephant” is an intimate and expansive struggle, a painting that seeks not answers but emotions. A visual manifesto about the human, the weak, and the strange. An exhibition that doesn’t seek to please, but to make us feel.

We talk with artist Javier Ruiz about his solo project “Far Behind Who We Were” at UVNT Art Fair 2023 with GALERIA Victor Lope.