Artist Statement:
Drawing Makes People Happy is an exhibition centered around the topics of friendship, community, and creativity. Featuring a selection of paintings and works on paper including monoprints, inkjet prints, and airbrush painting in combination with inkjet printing, the exhibition showcases playful and friendly animal-hybrids known as Creatures of the Garden. In 2022, Josias Figueirido created his signature fictional characters, Piri the Dreamer and Flying Coyote, and the Garden, an imaginary and magical space full of wonder and humorous Creatures. The works on display in this exhibition are Piri’s and Coyote’s drawings of the Creatures they encounter in the Garden. The exhibition encourages the viewer to enter this curious and imaginary world and to explore drawing as an act of discovery.
About Piri the Dreamer and Flying Coyote:
Piri the Dreamer and Flying Coyote are Josias Figueirido’s signature fictional characters. They were born in Laredo, Texas, at the US-Mexico border, in 2022 while Figueirido was teaching students who crossed the bridge from Mexico to the US every day of class. Inspired by personal and biographical experiences related to immigration, the fictional story of Piri the Dreamer and Flying Coyote speaks of universal friendship and the unexpected bond that grows between people who were never intended to meet or get along but are united by the same desire for a new beginning far from their places of origin. Figueirido says, “For me, fictional stories blend both imagination and reality and can connect people cross-culturally. As an artist, fiction gives me control over my stories. I enjoy the freedom of deciding what is possible.” Piri the Dreamer and Flying Coyote stand for never giving up on dreams, nurturing friendships, building community, and having a curious and open mind.
About Josias Figueiredo:
Josias Figueirido is an artist from Spain based in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. His work is at the intersection of art and design, digital and physical spaces, and real and imaginary stories. Combining analog and digital processes, Figueirido’s creative strategies involve building narratives in 3D modeling software before they are disseminated in paintings, drawings, animations, and merchandise. He earned an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Drawing School, and a BA in Fine Arts from London Metropolitan University. He has been in residence at EMAR by Collar Works, Wassaic Project, Millay Arts, Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Vermont Studio Center, Moritz-Heyman, Dumfries House, and the Fabric Workshop and Museum in the Post Graduate Apprentice Program.
His work has been in exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He is the recipient of the 2019 Cindi Royce Enger Fellowship from Second State Press and a 2021 recipient of a Challenge America Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for a collaborative project. His work is in private and public collections including the Horseman Collection of American Art and the Francisco Fernandez del Riego Museum. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Seton Hill University.
