Joe Taveras He is a Boston-based abstract artist who turned to art after working in robotics. In just his first year representing Michael Gallery on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, he sold more than fifty major works of art to collectors around the world, making him the best-selling artist in the gallery's 30-year history. To talk about his work, Taveras joined us for a short interview.
Your journey into the art world is quite unconventional, as you go from a career in robotics to becoming a self-taught artist. How has your background in robotics influenced your artistic practice, particularly in exploring the fusion of science and philosophy?
I will never forget traveling to Tokyo alone for the first time. It was midnight, and after changing into a suit in the plane's bathroom, I was ready to hand over and display the two robots to the group that was about to become our distributors in Japan. As soon as I got off the plane, I was greeted by a group of armed forces who interrogated me about the nature of the two robots I had just brought back from New York City. After alleviating any anxiety and showing them that Timmy was a friendly robot, I continued with my meeting. The robots and I stood across the boardroom in front of a large group of distributors, each of whom had spent many decades in the industry. The CEO of the company slowly walked up to the robot, tapped its head and suddenly the robot started moving towards him. What happened next is something I'm forever grateful for having seen thousands and thousands of times before: He looked at the robot and a huge smile stretched across his face. In the few hundred thousand miles I've traveled deploying robots around the world, I've had a front-row seat to a remarkable psychological experience. Each time, without fail, the person using the robot smiles, steps back, and as the robot follows, it changes its behaviors, movements, and patterns to effectively synchronize with the robot. By observing how they predicted its movements based on their own, I began to see not only all the computational processes between human and robot, but also how flexible the parameters of the subject of our personal consciousness can be.
In my travels, I've collected countless stories like these, all of which carry a tinge of cultural intensity, spiritual curiosity, and technological advancement. I often think how strange it is that the art world places so much value on formal institutional education in the arts when what really determines an artist's influence is the amount of connected knots of cultural information he or she can gather. This and the fact that all techniques can be learned outside the classroom.
As someone who emerged on the art scene during the COVID-19 pandemic, how have the global challenges of that time influenced your artistic perspective, and do you expect it to continue to influence your future work?
My entire team at the robotics company was terminated, and I was on the verge of becoming a completely independent robot trader. My day will look no different than what I did at Timmy: traveling with robots, developing software for different companies, etc. In hindsight, almost everything I learned about sales, distribution, and handling luxury goods came from those experiences. . All of this knowledge and information was immediately transferred into my painting practice. Something about that time sparked a deep obsession with expression. When I first sat down in front of my first canvas on March 14, 2020, I saw it all. My whole life and beyond. I saw the moment I was in, not what was right around me in my garage in Los Angeles, but the cultural moment. I zoomed out and I could see the historical moment of this generation, this millennium, and my place in it. I zoomed in again and saw myself looking back at me, but this time it wasn't in my imagination but right in front of me, 20 x 16 inches. Every day since then, I have stood in front of a canvas and experienced complete ego death for hours on end. In this free-flowing state, the spirit of the era moves my hands, filling the paintings with a rich, energetic vitality. By transcending the ego, nature becomes central in the process of bringing the painting to life.
Your artwork has found its way into over 300 private collections worldwide. Can you share a specific instance where an art collector's interpretation or reaction to your work particularly resonated with you, and how this influenced your subsequent creations?
I have this collector who I'm grateful to have become friends with over the years. He is a well-known collector in the United States and has thousands of works in his collection. I was holding an open house event at my warehouse studio in Boston and he showed up two hours early. He told me he got the opening time wrong, but I knew that was just one of his collection strategies. I welcomed him and we talked about how I practiced and what I was currently working on. He spent nearly an hour going through piles of work, looking in all the nooks and crannies of my studio to pull off a small, seemingly unexpected work on canvas. Unbeknownst to him, he happened to be found
What may be the rarest work in the room: the first screen-printed artwork. She combined layers of screen printing and oil paint to build a vibrant image. The work really spoke to him and he needed to get it. This experience will always hold a special place in my life. Despite this, I haven't screen printed since. This experience did not influence me to suddenly start screen printing everything I could find, but instead served as a very poignant reminder of how important it is to bring authenticity to your practice. You should never feel like you can't create something because it looks different from what you usually make or what people usually respond to. You never know, it could be a breakthrough. If I was afraid to try something new, I wouldn't pick up a paintbrush in the first place.
If you could give any advice to aspiring artists looking to transition from a different field, what would it be?
Being an artist can be very challenging, and it is not for the faint of heart. Growing up in America, I often heard people discuss the importance of career development and finding a good job. It wasn't until I was an adult that I first heard about the difference between a career and a job. When you feel an unerring sense of purpose at your core, you will not only accomplish and master everything in front of you, but you will also spend every moment contributing to your Higher Self. I was called to paint by something infinitely more powerful than myself. One day I had never drawn before, the next I was without a body and needed to create one. It is the biggest mystery of my life and it is the daily exploration of that unknown that makes every moment so beautiful!
