Javier Calleja

Javier Calleja was born in 1971 and lives in Malaga, Spain.

Over the years Calleja has worked with drawings, installations, sculptures, and paintings, often playing with the scale and perspective in his presentations. Working both in minuscule and large scale his installations regularly focus on beguiling the viewer as a significant part of the work.

Originally imagined as visual representations of the artist's own feelings and experiences, his big-eyed characters became his unmistakable signature. Over the years the characters evolved from drawings, over paintings, into sculptures and objects, almost exclusively depicting a boy in the transitional age between the teen and adolescence. With oversized, watery eyes, and subtle addition of red blush, Calleja's characters are little heroes who just overcame something painful and are about to smile again after crying.