The four panels of Not everyday or… 2016, feature several of Javier Calleja’s signature motifs, including clouds, exaggerated wide-eyed characters, and exclamatory text. The largest component, lined like a student’s notebook paper, contains a cloud-headed figure with bright green eyes and a sky-blue t-shirt exclaiming “YES” across the front. The three additional parts in the work feature clouds, one of which also has Calleja’s famous eyes on it.
“With these simple characters, only a pair of eyes and one T-shirt, I can talk about everything. I can be critic, empathic, happy.”
—Javier Calleja
Calleja’s playful practice is inspired by contemporary Yoshitomo Nara, whom Calleja worked with in 2007, and the aesthetics of both Spanish and Japanese cartoons. Manga, in particular, inspires the artist by its visual simplicity and ability to communicate a narrative effectively, without complex explanation. Inherent in all his work is Calleja’s desire to leave something to be interpreted and felt by the viewer: “I want the observer to finish the painting,” he has said. “To start and finish. I want to keep this moment that one part of the painting is well rendered or finished, and other is very expressive or casual.”i Calleja’s preference for carefree expression can even be understood in the orange and yellow marks at the edge of the center panel. His willingness to share his process of creation breaks down the barrier between creator and observer.
The title of the work appears as text above the cloud-headed figure, connecting Not everyday or... with Calleja’s wider oeuvre. The work represents a critical turning point in Calleja’s practice, as he shifted from smaller scale, installation-based works featuring anthropomorphic pebbles and clouds, to an increasingly figurative, and larger scale, practice. Not everday or... treads this middle ground, showing an artist at play in a universe of his own making, incorporating different motifs as he embarks on expanding his practice.
