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Eduving Porras Molina, known as EDU, is one of its exponents. Line and color in fusion with digital technique characterizes the work he will present at the Saphira & Ventura Gallery from September 19 to 22. The collective Plastic Artists by Venezuelan Journalists 2018 will bring together an important constellation of creators from the South American country.

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Simplified and flat figures, in dynamic interaction with the environment through irregular shapes and angles stand out in the trend of Eduvism that distinguishes the most recent work of the Venezuelan illustrator, graphic designer and professor Eduving Porras Molina, known as Edu, who will exhibit at the Saphira & Ventura Gallery in New York, from September 19 to 22.

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Along with the masters Carlos Cruz Diez, Juvenal Ravelo and Pedro León Zapata, in addition to Rayma and Edo Weil, among another hundred great creators of the South American nation, Porras will participate in the collective Plastic Artists by Venezuelan Journalists 2018, organized by this art room in alliance with the organization ArteLatAm and New York International Contemporary Art Society.

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Eduving Porras specified that in this framework Art Business Collection ArtBCo will direct an auction from its virtual platform and that the collected will be destined to the Institute of Social Welfare of the Journalist, attached to the college that brings together these professionals of Venezuela and that arrives at 52 years of founding.

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A spa among skyscrapers

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"Playa Macuto" is the name of the work that will represent Eduving Porras in the New York exhibition and that is part of the series Eduvismo Geométricos 2018. Its measurements are 50 by 70 centimeters and it is a printing on PVC polymer film and one millimeter, matt white color and INkjet UV printing. PE banner film.

Details abound in this work, as its author unravels: "There is the girl who is the center of attention, the shy, the curious, the conservative, the handsome who makes that he does not see, the peeping tom, the friends who enjoy the point of attention, the unfriendly girl, the one who admires, among others. "

Blue tones predominate and mountains and sun, palm trees and awnings are appreciated, elements that are connected by lines, shapes and symmetrical and asymmetrical cuts that correspond to geometricalism.

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This is a trend of recent date, originating in Europe and that is related to other currents of universal art, such as cubism, Although it reminds a lot of plastic geometrism for the angles that form the strokes, it breaks with the almost mathematical pattern of geometrism and expresses itself with full freedom.

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– Eduvism gives strength to the line as a base of structure. Each line fulfills a function depending on its dimension or thickness and encloses the color that in turn serves as a support and gives a certain figurative sense - said Eduving.

After researching and reviewing graphic trends, I develop this dynamic style to which it impregnates the tropics, approximately two years ago.

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– With Eduvism I started after exploring many exponents of techniques and references of contemporary art and merged part of my knowledge in graphics in terms of color and composition.

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In his career, Eduving Porras immersed himself in the techniques of oil on canvas with a tendency to impressionist, in addition to comics, pop realism and geometric caricature.

– At the beginning I have the geometric work in the caricature that is another more figurative stage with characters, as to take off from the pop realism that I had been doing and move on to the geometric figurative giving value to the form and color - explained part of his transition process to his most recent proposal.

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Creative process

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The observation and study of the form and environment where the action takes place is part of Porras' plastic work. "From there the line predominates as the protagonist, enclosing the spaces to give way to the colors, which are based on the theme to be presented, applying a little chromatic analogy and high contrasts. It depends on the style or approach I try to present dynamic shapes and flat colors, rather than a figuration to the themes based on some Venezuelan scenes, he incorporated environments or synthesis of these to support the figure, "he revealed.

– How do you start a work? With a drawing by hand or directly in the digital?

– Most of them on paper and pencil then I pass to the computer and digitize to do line by line and then move to color. I select the color palette and do tests, trying to use analogous colors and a contrasting color; On some occasions, cold tones with a warm one as a contrast

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– Is Venezuela present in your work?

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– Yes, of course, it is one of my topics always present. However, I address sports themes or dynamic actions that are in tune with the color. I try that the theme of the crisis does not predominate in my work, but the good moments lived and the resources that we have that I know that one day we will enjoy again. I tried not to address the issue of the crisis, since there are many plastic artists who capture it, so I think the projection should be different.

– Do you think that the more an artist expresses his local charge in the work, the more universal he is?

– That is certainly the case. It is the touch that identifies it and creates it with a unique identity before other expressions.

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Eduving Porras has exhibited at the National Art Gallery, GAN, the French Embassy and the Museo de la Estampa and the Arturo Michelena Museum in Caracas. He also participated in a couple of exhibitions in Miami.

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Genius and figure

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In March of 42 years ago, Eduving arrived at the Porras Molina home. As his mother was presented with the opportunity to buy a home in La Vega, one of the 22 parishes of the Capital District of Caracas, and there was no better way to thank her for the favor than by baptizing the offspring with a name derived from that of the patron saint of her own roof.

In that place passed the first 11 years of the artist, who remembers that he always had a predilection for pencil and crayons. "I learned to write only when my dad told me it was like drawing," she said.

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At the age of eight he showed his first plastic work at the El Araguaney Children's Foundation on La Vega Boulevard. "It was an acrylic square on canvas of the shape of a girl touching a waterfall, I was second and third also because I helped paint it. The first place was taken by a boy whose father helped and got a trip to Japan, "he recalled.

Porras studied at the Cristóbal Rojas School of Visual Arts in the capital. He went through many plastic platforms, carried out graphic design in parallel and merged both trends, which although it was a little more square allowed him to develop a little detail in some of his works, thanks to all that learning and teachers, such as Nedo.

The works of Venezuelans Jesús Soto, Carlos Cruz Diez, Víctor Hugo Irazábal and Armando Reverón, are a reference for Eduving.

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He also trained at the University Institute of Technology and Industrial Administration as a publicist, with specialties in Marketing at IAB Spain. He was a professor of Advertising, Creativity, Web Design and Diploma of Creative Process in Advertising at the University Institute of Technology of Industrial Administration, Iuta, Caracas.

Eduving has a trajectory of more than 25 years of experience in editorial design, packaging, branding and advertising, fields where its strength is illustration.

He has worked illustrating and designing countless projects for different audiences; from magazines and children's books to packaging, branding, web, multimedia and advertising projects by major brands such as Nike, MTV, Pepsi, Lipton, Brisk, Coca-Cola, Sony-BMG, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Adidas, among others.

He currently teaches online tutorials and actively participates in graphic projects for various brands and clients.

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Interview by journalist Irama Delgado

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