A Sculptor on Canvas: The Art of Luis-Fernando Suárez

Detail of Vestiges of the Garden, Historical Garden Series, 2023-2025, Luis-Fernando Suárez 

Don't you be nervous, I'm the one who's never done this before, so you have more experience than me.

Don't be nervous, this is good. 

Before we begin

Some interviews begin with a list of questions. This one began over a year ago over glasses—and sometimes bottles—of red wine.

Over countless conversations, Luis Fernando Suárez has become much more than an artist whose work I admire. He has become a friend, a mentor, and someone who has quietly shaped the way I look at art. Whether discussing painting, philosophy, politics, or simply life, he has a remarkable ability to slow you down and encourage you to look a little longer, think a little deeper, and remain open to changing your perspective.

Walking into his Montréal studio for our first formal interview felt surprisingly familiar. Surrounded by richly textured paintings and works in progress, it felt less like conducting an interview and more like continuing a conversation we had already been having. What follows is a glimpse into that conversation—one about material, memory, time, and what it truly means to live as an artist. (My voice is in bold).

Work in progress, photo from the artist's instagram

How would you like to introduce yourself?

I will say that the first thing is, my name is Luis Fernando Suarez. I'm Colombian, born in 1971, November. I am a human being. Fully conscious of that. I am an artist painter. I am a person who enjoys arts and likes to share my art with people.

That's the way I define myself.

Did you always want to be an artist?

Yes. Since I have memory, I always wanted to be an artist. I didn't know at the beginning what it means to be an artist, when I was a kid, but I had memories since the age of five years old. At that age I was always drawing, making things from newspapers, so I knew I always wanted to build something with my hands. Through the years, I understood that this desire is called art, and I decided to pursue this career, this life.

Do you look at it as a life or a career?

Honestly, for me, it's the only way I can exist.

So it's life.

What inspires you as an artist?

I would say that it is more than inspiration as I have a moral obligation and necessity. Art is only the excuse to share how I see life, how I see the human being. How is the relationship between nature and us, including politics and social problems etc. Art is a tool to talk. This is my relationship with art.

A wall of works in the studio

You spent some time in Mexico City?

Yes.

Tell me about Mexico City.

Mexico City, wow. I start going the first time, maybe seventeen or eighteen years ago. The first time I was there is because I saw, here in Montréal, in the streets, publicity about Frida Kahlo exhibition. And I always like Frida Kahlo, the life. And so, I take a plane for one weekend, I was there.

It's a city, which is like a monster. It's huge. It's noisy. It's a city of extremes. You have the most beautiful and the most ugly, according to our standards. The rich and the poverty. It's a city of extremes. For me, (Mexico City) is like an old woman. You have so much history in all these streets. It is chaotic, but very green. There are a lot of trees.

I was born in Bogotá, which is a big city like Mexico City, and I feel very comfortable there from the beginning, even if it is very big and chaotic. For me it was very familiar. Montréal, where I live is a very peaceful, sometimes boring city, because Canada is a very young country. Mexico or Latin America is not only since the moment it was discovered by the Spanish, in 1537, I think, they have all the cultures like the Incas, the Mayas. So this area in Latin America, in Mexico particularly, is full of history. And you can see the history and the culture in their architecture and their people. It is a beautiful country and I invite everyone to go. 

Do you see a lot of similarities between Montréal and Mexico City?

The similarities I can see is the creativity. Because I am an artist, I know a lot of artists here (in Montréal) and I know a lot of artists in Mexico too. And all of us, we are struggling with how we can create something new. This desire is something that we share in both cities. Montréal is more structured city, a more disciplined city. Mexico, everything is possible. 

Montréal is like a person who work eight to five and after, they sleep. Mexico City is a person who never sleeps, is super active. But both have the creativity. 

Do you find they both influence your art? And if so, how?

My relationship with Mexico is very young. So Montréal has more influence in my art because I came here 29 years ago when I was 24. So in a certain way I grow up like a young adult, I became an adult here. So my personal development is Montréal, and Montréal has more and more identity for me, or more importance or influence than Mexico. What happened in Mexico is, Mexico opened my eyes to more universal subjects. I would say that Montréal, is the inspiration of the subject, I talk with more intimate subjects. In Mexico I talk more social or group of subjects. That is the difference between both cities, according to your question.

Another wall of works in the studio

Tell me about your artistic process.

So the artistic process, first of all, when I decided or when I choose Canada to come, is because I want to be an artist in a certain way. In Colombia it's possible to be, but it's very elitist, and it's very expensive to go to the universities there in art. I came from a very humble family, so the economical possibilities was not there. To work and study there in art will be almost impossible. So life bring me to Canada and I decided to choose Canada because I found it a very neutral country, peaceful country, and for me, it was something I was looking for. In Colombia, I live during the decades of the 80s and 90s, where the violence was very present. Bombs, killing, kidnapping, and it was very hard visually and emotionally. I always say that I'm part of that generation in Colombia that we are traumatized by the violence, something in Canada, they don't know what is that. I came here and I try. I went to the university and I tried drawing. I discovered I was completely useless for drawing. I did my best, but it's not something that I have that capacity, so I decided to work in abstract is the best field for me, because they allow me to express anything. For me, abstract is more freedom than the figurative things. And I start working. I'm very gestural. In Latin American culture, we touch everything. We are touching the trees all the time. We are touching the partners. We are touching family, kissing, hugging, in Canada, the relation between the bodies are different. The people don't touch, people have a very big personal space. In Latin America we don't have personal space. So that influenced my work. I work with my hands, and here in Canada I discovered a material they called chip-rock or compound. It's a material that we use for the walls for drywall, and since I meet the first time, that materials, which I never knew in Colombia, 29 years ago, I fell in love. And I like it because it's dirty. I can touch all the time. When they dry, the material, they make cracks. And with the time I discovered that the cracks is like a person having wrinkles or scars.

They give experience.

The material made me think about the geology is very geological impression when my paintings are finished at the beginning. So people relate it to geography, relate it to the earth, because the cracks, and because they have relief like a mountain sometimes, because I don't have any more interest to learn how to draw them, I make spontaneous gestures with the materials on the canvas.  Normally, I start any work with the canvas horizontal on the floor. And I be in four cat pose (on all fours), so the first impression I have with the canvas, it's on top of the canvas, not like vertical in the wall or in an easel. I start there. Even if it's 10' by 10' or 15' by 15', I start, it's always there. So in a certain way this allows me to have a panoramic vision of the area where I work. And at the beginning of my career, I had the necessity to fill all the canvas, all the surfaces, every centimetre, square inch, I filled it with everything. I didn't have any empty space. I was obsessed to fill, like I was having an emptiness in my inside and I needed to fill it with something. So I use a lot of material, and my canvases are very heavy, with time I learned how to be light, but at the beginning it was heavy.  

My work takes time. This is another factor I have important in my work, is the time. A lot of work, they take me three months, four months, six months. I have works maximum seven years. Doesn't mean I work every day onto the canvas. I work for 15 days, I can stop, I continue. So I am not rushing any work. And I do it that way because I am changing. My mind changes. Sometimes I arrive to the studio to work on a canvas, I am not the same like I was 15 days before, so I don't want to continue, I start something else and I come back, I change, I start again sometimes and again this day comes. This is the reason my canvas sometimes have so many different stage in life, because the first idea disappears.

Painting with no title yet

Maybe six years ago or five years ago, during the COVID period, which is one of the most beautiful times for me because nobody was in the street, I came to my studio, honestly, nobody look at me with loneliness, and for the first time in my career, I make a line. Did you see the borders there? It's a line that is certain way new. Before I was filing everything. As you can see here. This is all old. The material and the colour was the important things for me. The materials, because they give relief. So when you touch, I like when people touch my paintings. I don't mind. The galleries where I work, they don't like because they think is they have disrespect for the art, the distance, I would say. In my case, I don't believe in that. I think my art has to be shared with all the senses, not only with the eyes but of the tactile things. So certainly the paintings are strong enough to be touch or caressed. 

Sometimes I do the open house here in the studio. They do in Montréal, something they call La Nuit Blanche. It's two or three times a year, the city opens museum and galleries and I open my studio to everybody. So I have people, 200 people, and the people touch and they're very surprised because they do something that was not allowed in galleries and museums. My paintings, some architect tell me, that it's a mix between painting and sculpture, because in the sculptures, people want to touch. And you can see volume. In my paintings you don't see volume, but you see relief. As I told you in the beginning, I make full. Everything was full, no spaces. And someday in COVID, I don't know why, I start as always horizontal in the floors, and I draw a line and I start working on the part on the superior of the line, above the line, and I discover, because when I start painting horizontal, after I put it vertical so with liquid, so accidentally, accidentally no, the gravity makes it work to leak the things and they make lines or vertical lines. And for me was a big surprise. I discovered that I can be out of my routine. I was out by accident. At the time, I thought it was an accident, now with the distance of time, I know that no, it's no accidents in life. 

Everything happens at the moment they need to have happen. Relationship, illness, to lose somebody. We don't lose the mother when we want to lose her, we lose her when we need her to live and sometimes we are prepared, sometimes not. In my case, that line appears so many years after I start painting and help me to see another perspective, so I start working on the top, and I don't touch the bottom line. The bottom line is for me, in a certain way, the history of the painting. Many colours, I work on the top, liquids they go down and you can see the history. I don't believe in perfections. I don't believe that somebody or the situation has to be perfect or beautiful or of any beauty. This part sometimes is ugly. It's not Perfect. See that for me is beautiful, it's the history of the painting.

Another work with no title

So right now I work on that one, I'm changing. I will interpret this line in a different way. I have ideas that is not really concise in my mind, so I cannot talk yet about that process. Maybe in few years when we meet again, we continue this conversation. I hope this conversation will be for life. So when I will have 97 years old, you can continue to talk to me, have these beautiful dialogues about that. So I will change this line, I will incorporate in other ways. This is more or less my work, a long time ago, when I was using all the canvas, I work in almost monochrome, I didn't use too many colours, and for so many people and critics, they say that was a dark period. Why don't you integrate the colours? Yellows? Greens? Because I love dark colours. When the line appears, I broke this pattern or I break the monochrome. I have new colours, new things that help me inside to change my point of view. I'm very stubborn, but I realized that I can be open minded, and I let all the ideas, the new ideas come to my mind, sometimes.

How would you describe your work in three words?

In three words...

In three words...

I have one already is more than describe, I can use three words. The three words is one is contemplation, because it's abstract, the work, the object, because the paintings are objects, like a chair, its nothing sacred, art. For me, the object of art is not sacred, it's only objects. Because art, abstract art, every person, their  history and personal way to see life has a different interpretation or relation with colour or shapes. The contemplation is something that is time, that allow the public to converse with the painting. My paintings, I demand that. To understand my paintings, it's almost an obligation to take time in front of the painting. I'm not rushing anything. So my collectors, they know that when they have a painting of mine, it's important that they look at the painting, time to time, because the painting is changing, not the object change, it is the person changing and his relation with the painting changes. So this is the first word I will use.

The second word I will use is time. 

It's related to contemplation, you need time. But it's because my paintings take time for me to do. I'm not doing something in one week. I take time to produce. This time is like a river, it is in the same place, but the water going is not the same. It's different. Time is exactly the same. So I want my paintings to live their time. I have paintings that I made 20 years ago, and they have a subject and now I see the painting, the object didn't change, but the time changed and changed, so the time is very important for me.

And the other word I will use is weight.

The weight has different meanings. You have the weight, the physical, it's heavy because the object and the material, the nature is heaviness. But I'm trying to develop heavy subjects. I refuse, and I try not to fall into the facility of the aesthetics, to do something beautiful. I don't want to do beautiful for beautiful, or ugly for ugly. I want to have some meaning, a very heavy meaning. So the word weight can apply to the heaviness of the object in grams, kilograms, whatever, but they can be in the concept. For example, I work with the environment and ecological things in an exhibition before, I have a next project to work about the linguistics and how the politics interfere in the normal history of our civilization of a people, so I want heavy subjects. If they are politically correct or not, it's not a problem for me. If the object that will be accepted or not, is not a problem for me. I want to be able to open the eyes of the people. Of course, if I do a beautiful object, it's easy to transfer the message, but sometimes the ugliness is a message to transfer too.

So this is the three words; contemplation, time, and weight.

Work inspired by quilting

Can you speak about how you know when a work  is finished?

For me, it's a very organic process. So by nature or by personality, I am a super emotional person. I am very sensitive or sensible, I have trouble with that word. 

Sensitive

Maybe it's both?

Maybe it's both

*laughs*

I'm a visceral person. Organic is another word. One of the things is when I came to Montréal in '97, I went to university, to UQAM, and I was very excited because for me,  it was important to have a title, to go to the academia, it was my dream since I was a kid. I started going there, I studied for two years and a half, I think, and I quit university because I didn't feel the academia was the good place for me. One of the reason is because the university tried to uniformize all the students at the same time. Everybody was different, but the results of the end of every season class, was very similar. I understood or now understand that because the nature of Canada, Canada is a mental country. Emotions are not allowed in Canada. When somebody is very emotional, it's crazy or it's depressed, or it's anxiety. In Canada, emotions in a way, it's a fault to be emotional. Art in Canada is very intellectual, it's very analytical, it's very scientific. They have the hypothesis, they have the development, and have a conclusion. Few artists in Canada are, from my point of view, are emotional. It's very good art in Canada, but it's for me more intellectual to analyze. 

In my case, I am organic, emotional, spontaneous. Another part of my work is spontaneity. Everyday, I'm different. Everyday the painting can change. And I don't care. Honestly, I don't care. So coming back to your question, I know the painting is finished when my stomach turn. There is a, I don't know how to call that part. I don't have any interest to know. But when something important in my life happens, my stomach turn. At that moment I learned to listen. Some people, they call intuition. I don't know. So when I'm looking at painting, because I have the contemplation to be painting is not only the exercise with the hand, or my brush, it is to look the painting. This exercise I ask to the public, is because I did already in the past. At certain moments I know the painting is finished because my stomach turns, so the first thing I do, I varnish. I seal in a certain way the painting, so the seal in the paintings, they like a shield to avoid myself to again change the painting. Because if I continue, I continue. So at the moment my stomach turns, I varnish the painting, at the moment that painting is finished and doesn't belong to me anymore, I put it, and he will have his own life and his own process to do by himself.

And how would you like to be remembered as an artist?

I don't have any desire to be remembered as an artist.

Why?

Because I am not important. I think individually it's not important who live or who is not. I think
that is a very good question. I thought a lot of times of that. I think for me I want to, more than remember the individual that I am, is to remember the time where I live. Okay, so which kind of society Luis Fernando Suarez the artist live there? And more than remember like a person I want to remember, I want to be remembered like I contribute something for this particular time, for the society. As a human being, being alive, we will have a finished time and in 200 years nobody will remember me. Like right now, we don't remember trillions of people preceding us, in the past, in history. But sometimes we remember is the work of that people and that work of the people like Albert Einstein, we remember him because he made some theories, we remember Newton because he made some theories. We don't remember Newton as a person, we remember him or Galileo or Frida Kahlo or whatever it is, it's not because the person himself is what they contribute to this time, to their times. So if I want to be remembered, I prefer to be remembered with the actions I contribute to the society in this period of time, and how my work could survive contemporary for 300, 400 years, and if it's not, it's perfect, I will disappear in 50 years maximum, and until now, I'm very happy with everything I accomplish in my life.

Artist's signature includes a handprint on the back of the canvas

Closing Reflection

Looking back on this conversation, I'm reminded why I've always enjoyed talking with Fernando. Every discussion—whether over dinner, a glass (or bottle) of red wine, or in his studio—has a way of becoming about much more than art. His generosity with his time, his willingness to share both certainty and doubt, and his constant encouragement to look more carefully have quietly shaped the way I approach paintings, museums, and the stories they hold. He has helped me develop my eye for art, but perhaps more importantly, he has taught me the value of slowing down and truly looking.

As I prepare to leave Montréal—a city that has been home for nearly two years—this conversation feels especially meaningful. It arrives at the close of one chapter, just before another begins. Like Fernando's paintings, life has a way of revealing itself gradually, layer by layer, often making sense only in hindsight.

Before that next chapter unfolds, I'm looking forward to taking a small summer break: a chance to rest, reflect, spend time with family, and absorb everything these past two years have offered. When I return to writing, I'll carry many lessons from this city with me, but few have been as lasting as those shared in Fernando's presence.

If there's one thing this friendship has taught me, it's that art isn't something we simply look at—it changes the way we look at the world. And for that, I'll always be grateful.