DISCOVERING WHERE THE SUN TAKES REFUGE AND TURNING IT INTO ART

Jun Martínez begins his artistic process with the unanswered questions that accompany him. In this case, the Puerto Rican artist wondered where light resides in dark times—where the sun takes refuge. In search of an answer, he encountered a Taíno myth that explains how the sun shelters in the cave of Iguanaboina at night, just as the moon does during the day. Jun then imagined the sun as a character and, in his exhibition at Adhesivo Contemporary (Mexico City), narrates a work that stages an encounter with the sun in its game of hide-and-seek.

Inside the gallery’s dark walls, a broad band of light shines: donde el sol se refugia (where the sun takes refuge). At eye level, a large panoramic acrylic piece seems to suspend time. The work is an in situ installation composed of ten pieces created within the space. Jun drew inspiration from a photograph he took in Puerto Rico, shot from behind some bushes from which the reflection of the sun could be seen in a small stream. Although he has always painted landscapes from his country, even after living in London for more than two years he avoids approaching them from a purely nostalgic perspective. Instead, he seeks a transformation of the landscape—and of himself as well. His work has become a kind of inner landscape.

For the past ten years, working on a piece has been an immersive process for Jun. The exhibition’s installation recreates that immersion the artist no longer physically experiences. “Part of the artistic tradition looks at the landscape in order to dominate it, conquer it, or exoticize it. I understand myself as an element within that landscape, and that’s why it is immersive. Because I am a part of this,” the artist explains in conversation with Arte al Día. His painting reflects this understanding of his own position.

Iguanaboina
They say that was the name
the Taíno gave to the cave
where the moon hid during the day
and the sun at night

I paint the sun
in its reflection
resting upon a stream
in a double komorebi:
light filters
through the trees
over the water
and behind the bushes
I watch it

“That’s how the light gets in”

The light of a weary sun
who, like a martyr,
rests without ceasing to shine

Magritte painted the empire of light.
The light I know
believes in no empires.
It is the one we find—
those who work, keep watch,
or weep tonight—
where the sun takes refuge.

Jun completes his work with these words, creating at Adhesivo a narrated space in which viewers can also take part.

José Jun Martínez (Bayamón, 1992) is a Puerto Rican visual artist based in London. His practice spans a decade of immersive contemplation in natural environments, translating his perceptions and memories into a language of painterly materiality.

He earned a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras (2015), and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in London, where he was awarded the Valerie Beston Artists’ Trust Prize (2024). His recent solo exhibitions include Hermano de las Flores (Museo de San Juan), Esto También Permanece (Fundación Ángel Ramos, San Juan, 2022), and El abrazo de las fieras (Walter Otero Contemporary Art, San Juan, 2022), as well as exhibitions at Galería Leyendecker, Tenerife; Matt Carey-Williams, London; and Ordovas, London. donde el sol se refugia marks Martínez’s first solo exhibition in Mexico, at Adhesivo Contemporary, Mexico City.