MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD: JUAN ORBES

 

Some artists wait until their work feels “ready” to be seen.

Juan Orbes didn’t.

Based in Colombia, Juan’s process started long before charcoal, back when he was a kid carrying a notebook everywhere, sketching his toys, his dreams, his family. Drawing wasn’t a hobby, it was how he made sense of the world around him.

As he got older, he chose a path most people around him wouldn’t recommend, art. He studied visual arts for a time, but when it fell short, he stepped away and kept going on his own. Every day. Studying the greats. Learning through repetition. Building something without a roadmap.

In 2024, something shifted.
Mad Charcoal became the spark, but instead of overthinking it, Juan started sharing. Every day. Process, progress, and everything in between.

What’s come out of that consistency is work that doesn’t just show the human form, it digs into the human experience.

His charcoal portraits live in solitude.
In memory.
In the quiet weight of things we don’t always say out loud.

You see it in bodies of work like Shapes, Scars & Thoughts and You’re Still Here, pieces that feel less like images and more like moments pulled from somewhere deeper.

There’s also a recurring figure in his work, Jesus.
Not as someone distant or symbolic, but a man, fully God and fully human. For Juan, it’s an exploration of what it actually means to be human, seen clearly in The First Great Master.

And now, his work is evolving.

Moving toward symbolism.
Toward erosion.
Toward breaking things down and rebuilding them in new ways.

Pieces like The Upcoming and Passage push beyond representation, into something more abstract, more experimental, more unknown.

It’s the kind of work that doesn’t rush.
It builds. It questions. It changes.

And that’s what we’re here for.

Check out Juan's work at juanorbes.com or _juan.orbes

THE FIRST GREAT MASTER

YOU'RE STILL HERE

SHAPES, SCARS AND THOUGHTS

THE UPCOMING