Javier Grajales

Cascada I / Waterfall I

digital print on canvas paper

2024, 253 x 42 cm

Estudios del Agua / Water Studies

lithography ink on cotton paper

monotypes, varied edition of 8

2024 38,50 x 28 cm

These works stem from the visual and symbolic exploration of a python’s shed skin found in Parque del Este (Caracas) transformed into ametaphor for water—rivers, waves, and waterfalls, referencing mythologies like the Amazonian Yacumama and the Australian Rainbow Serpent.

Water Studies, a series of monotypes, inspired by Japanese water illustrations and Gyotaku prints, explore the link between serpents and water through fluid forms and tonal variation. Waterfall I digitally reimagines the skin’s patterns into a cascading landscape, offering a poetic reflection on movement, transformation, and the visual memory of water, articulated through the shed skin of a serpent turned into landscape.

Javier Grajales (*1991, Venezuela) Artist

and researcher born in Caracas. His work

addresses the biosphere from ecological

and contemplative perspectives, alongside

political themes. Participated in numerous

group exhibitions in Venezuela and abroad;

recipient of various awards. Solo shows include

Reenfoque: Reflexiones Sobre el Paisaje Urbano

(Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas, 2016)

and Escrituras Sagradas (Sala Mendoza, Caracas,

2024).

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Javier Grajales

Cascada I / Waterfall I

Impresión digital sobre papel canvas

Estudios del Agua / Water Studies

Tinta de litografía sobre papel de algodón

Monotipos, edición variada de 8

2024, 38,50 x 28 cm

Estas obras surgen de la exploración visual y simbólica de la piel mudada de una pitón hallada en el Parque del Este de Caracas, la cual se transforma en una metáfora del agua —ríos, olas y cascadas— en referencia a mitologías como la Yacumama amazónica y la Serpiente Arcoíris australiana.

Estudios de agua (Water Studies), una serie de monotipos inspirados en las ilustraciones de agua japonesas y los grabados Gyotaku, explora el vínculo entre las serpientes y el agua a través de formas fluidas y variaciones tonales. Por su parte, Cascada I (Waterfall I) reimagina digitalmente los patrones de la piel en un paisaje en cascada, ofreciendo una reflexión poética sobre el movimiento, la transformación y la memoria visual del agua, articulada a través de la piel de una serpiente convertida en paisaje.

Javier Grajales (1991, Venezuela) Artista e investigador nacido en Caracas. Su trabajo aborda la biosfera desde perspectivas ecológicas y contemplativas, en conjunto con temáticas políticas. Ha participado en numerosas exposiciones colectivas tanto en Venezuela como en el exterior y ha sido merecedor de diversos reconocimientos. Entre sus exposiciones individuales destacan Reenfoque: Reflexiones sobre el paisaje urbano (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, 2016) y Escrituras Sagradas (Sala Mendoza, Caracas, 2024).

About the exhibition 

Unbound Realms in FABRIKculture

Unbound Realms is a transdisciplinary exhibition curated by Ileana Ramírez Romero at FABRIKculture in Hégenheim, France (Sept 27-Nov 2, 2025) conceived as a porous constellation rather than a fixed narrative, the exhibition brings together artists whose practices traverse borders—geographic, linguistic, and symbolic. The works inhabit a space of latency and transformation, where images, texts, and gestures resist closure and instead invite unfolding.

Through cinematic fragments, poetic inscriptions, and tactile interventions, Unbound Realms explores the thresholds between visibility and invisibility, memory and materiality, fiction and testimony. The exhibition foregrounds diasporic perspectives and the marvelous real, drawing from Latin American literary traditions, migratory imaginaries, and the politics of translation.

Rather than presenting a unified theme, Unbound Realms offers a terrain of encounter—where the viewer becomes witness to what is not yet fully formed, and where creation is understood as a relational, anticipatory act.

Unbound Realms was developed in close collaboration and the participation of the artists:

Axel Töpfer & Jo Preußler

Daniela Brugger

Javier Grajales

Joana Amora

Juan José Olavarría

Katherine Newton

Luisanna González Quattrini

Raily Yance

Raphael Reichert

Rubén Bañuelos

Suwon Lee

Parque Industrial