>>Bio and statement

Sebastian Rojas Jimenez

Artist, printmaker, and professor. Sebastian Rojas Jimenez holds a degree in Fine Arts from PUC. Born in Santiago de Chile on September 13, 1972, he is the son of journalists who, in November 1973, fled Chile along with many others due to the political crisis triggered by the military dictatorship.

 

His early years unfolded between Cologne, Stockholm, Caracas, and Santiago—the latter a city to which he returned in the mid-1980s. This period, deeply marked him by social movements and the underground counterculture that flourished until Chile's return to democracy, continues to shape his artistic vision. He later returned to Caracas, where he worked part-time as a photomechanical assistant—his first engagement with the world of graphic arts—at J&C Impresores, a printing press owned by his exiled Chilean uncles, also journalists. Immersing himself in the Venezuelan-Chilean art scene of the early 1990s, he eventually returned to Santiago and spent two years working at the animation studio "Puma Cine Animación." His passion for animated films, anime, manga, and comics—both European and North American—became evident in his artistic output, serving as recurring influences in his work.

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During his studies at ARCIS University and later at PUC —Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile— from which he graduated, he was mentored by renowned masters such as Guillermo Machuca, Carlos Donaire, Jaime Cruz, Mario Soro and Eduardo Vilches (recipient of the 2023 National Arts Award in Chile). He cultivated strong ties with students of theater, film, literature, and philosophy and embarked on extensive travels, tirelessly visiting museums and galleries such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, MoMA, and Reina Sofía. These experiences deeply embedded within him a connection to both Chilean and global contemporary art.

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During this period, he co-organized a series of collective exhibitions alongside his artistic peers—many of whom remain close collaborators, including Alejandra Dorado, Sebastián Preece, and Víctor Castillo. In 1997, he participated in his first major exhibition, representing Chile at the Sixth Biennial of Art in Porto Alegre, Paris, and Santiago. The following year, while traveling between Santiago, Miami, and Montreal, he was selected—thanks to the support of his Argentine friend and Florida-based sculpture artist Daniel Fiorda—to exhibit at the Miami Bakehouse Art Complex. This juried collective exhibition of functional art was curated by the distinguished Czech industrial designer and artist Bohuslav Horak.

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Now residing between Valparaíso and Miami, Rojas Jimenez remains ever in motion, navigating between established artistic circuits and the overlooked corners of the urban landscape. Over the years, his artistic practice has expanded to include visual poetry, experimental film, the publication of his first novel, curatorial work, exhibition direction, and teaching. He currently leads the curatorial process at Sala El Peral, a heritage exhibition space in Valparaíso. This project proposes a curatorial model that intertwines self'curation with formal curation, elevating artistic production that emerges from community-driven needs for expressive spaces.​

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>>Statement

Since then, Rojas Jimenez has focused primarily on painting and, above all, printmaking as his principal means of artistic expression. His constant travels, experiences of repression in 1980s Chile, passion for anime, and deep engagement with science fiction literature and artistic camaraderie have given shape to a singular body of work—one that oscillates between printmaking, object art, illustration, and painting. His oeuvre is characterized by a grotesque yet refined bizarrerie, a highly aestheticized order brimming with references to comics, cinema, and fantasy and science fiction literature, imbued with potent socio-political critique and an irreverent questioning of eroticism and gender identity. This thematic intensity is meticulously executed through both classical and contemporary printmaking techniques, juxtaposing two extremes: on the one hand, technical precision and masterful execution; on the other, matrices salvaged from urban refuse and the economy of scarcity. This dialectic is further explored in his concept of "scatography" or "graphic emplacement"—the insertion of traces, the imprint of abandoned objects that have lost their function, into the pristine and formal realm of fine arts, museology and museography. These thematic concerns revolve around displacement, exile, and the human condition—the sensation of being an eternal foreigner, perpetually journeying across the earth. His perspective, shaped by the stance of the wanderer, the observer who gathers impressions and objects along his path, challenges the viewer to reconsider notions of artistic transcendence.

This process evokes parallels with the Dutch anamorphists, Duchamp, Warhol, and Beuys, questioning the nature of art and aesthetic experience, asserting that art does not merely exist for contemplation—it also gazes back at the viewer.

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His interrogation of traditional printmaking techniques within fine arts materializes across multiple artistic directions: in his installations that critique the commodification of humanity through the industrialization of food; in his monochrome series of "melting landscapes" that fluctuate between abstraction and figuration; in his analog collages and large-format paintings that explore socio-political and gender identity themes; and in his "scatographic prints," executed through a synthesis of printmaking methods including serigraphy, etching, woodcut, collagraphy, and the Hayter technique.

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Sebastian Rojas Jimenez’s artistic trajectory is an ever-evolving journey—an unceasing dialogue between technique and concept, order and chaos, refinement and raw materiality, challenging the boundaries between art and life itself.

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>>Exhibitions and collaborations

· Group show “Neo pop" Casa Limorena Miami USA 2025

· Collective show “Tinta y territorio” Museo Palacio Vergara Viña del Mar Chile 2025

· Collective show “100 años 100 artistas” Artepuerto Mercado Puerto Valparaíso Chile 2024

· Collective show “Highlights from the gallery collection” Lelia Mordoch gallery Miami USA 2024

· Solo show “Pareidolia” Sala El Peral Valparaíso Chile 2024

· Resident artist and part of the collectin in "Rojo galeria" fine art gallery Valparaiso 2023-25

· Solo show “Casos Aislados” PCdV Valparaíso Chile 2021

· Virtual art magazine PERRO ART MAGAZINE 2020 https://issuu.com/perroarte

· International group show (virtual) "From everywhere" curada por Klaudio Vidal junio 2020 https://youtu.be/48qIyFXAK9A

· Art action urban intervention "Caso aislado" Valparaíso-Santiago Chile 2019 https://fb.watch/7bJAwfY1jm/

· Collective show P.E.R.RO Centro Cultural Huellas Concon Chile 2019 

· Group showSalon de Invierno Municipalidad de Concon Chile 2016 

· 1a bienal Internacional de Grabado Costa Rica APDGI San Jose Costa Rica 2014

· Group show “Petit Format” Maison du Chili Paris Francia 2013

· Goup show Municipalidad de Vitacura Santiago Chile 2009

· Web publication at the magazine Círculo Freudiano de Miami, USA 2006

· Prize International Visual Poetry Competition Centro Myrtos Grammavisual Cataluña España 2006

· Arte Urbano Santiago Chile 2002

· Solo show Exhibition Hall of the Corporate Building Lan Chile Santiago Chile 2002

· Solo show galería Pez Madrid España 2000

· Group show Muestra de grabados chilenos, Sala Andes Universidad del Biobio Concepción Chile 2000

· Group show “Functional art” Bakehouse Art Complex Miami USA 1998

· Sexta Bienal de arte, París, Santiago, Porto Alegre. Porto Alegre Brasil 1997