Jan Valdés Téllez

JAN VALDÉS TÉLLEZ (Havana, Cuba, 1979).
“Still Life with a Body,” 2025.
Oil on linen.
Signed and dated in the lower center. Signed, dated, and titled on the reverse.
Measurements: 81 x 162 cm; 83 x 164 cm (frame).
In Still Life with a Body, Jan Valdés Téllez takes one of the traditional genres of Western painting and subverts it through the presence of the human body. The male figure, with his back to the viewer, is seated on a white surface, inevitably recalling Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s *The Bather at Valpinçon*: in both cases, the back becomes the primary subject of contemplation. However, in contrast to Ingres’s classical serenity, Valdés Téllez introduces a setting of extraordinary intensity and movement. The composition is structured through the contrast between the restrained and meticulous treatment of the body and the much more gestural execution of the background, achieved through the use of a palette knife, splatters, and accumulations of paint. Between these two registers, a white, sinuous structure—reminiscent of the folds and scrolls of the Baroque tradition—traverses the canvas and organizes the space.
This reference to the Baroque transcends a mere stylistic allusion. Valdés Téllez draws upon its theatricality, its penchant for accumulation, and its tension between order and excess to construct a fully contemporary image. The result is a dialogue between tradition and modernity; the work also lends itself to an interpretation linked to the concept of vanitas. While traditionally the skull reminded man of the transience of existence, here it is the living body itself—isolated and silent—that confronts an environment overflowing with energy. Eros and Thanatos thus appear closely linked
Jan Valdés Téllez is a Cuban-Spanish painter trained at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts and the Higher Institute of Art in Havana. He has held solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba and the 23rd and 12th Gallery in Havana, in addition to participating in international exhibitions in Spain, Canada, and the United States. His awards include the Arturo Montoto Painting Prize (2004) and the John Dalton “Gently Does It” Art Prize (2022). He has lived in Madrid since 2021.