Guillermo Tovar situates the origin of his artistic practice in an early impulse toward the image and, in particular, toward its technical dimension. His formal training in digital animation at Universidad Veritas took place between 2006 and 2010, preceded by studies at Nueva Escuela— a project conceived by Rocío Fernández, Ofelia Kellerman, Helen de Broide, and María Soledad Zúñiga— in the late 1990s, as well as by his time at IDEP in Barcelona in 2004. Nevertheless, his connection to visual creation dates back to childhood. The fantasy cinema of the 1980s, with its meticulous, rigorous, and deeply handcrafted special effects, awakened in him a fascination not only with the narrative worlds these films proposed, but also with the technical precision that made them possible. Since then, the desire for technical growth has remained a constant in his development.
Over time, this search evolved into the need to find a personal voice grounded in honesty, beyond the expectations of style or market that often shape artistic training. This process of maturation consolidated around the age of thirty-six, when the creation of the work Árbol con Ojos marked a revelatory moment: the bodily and spiritual sensation of having arrived at the kind of artist he had intuited since childhood. It was not an intellectual conclusion, but an experiential certainty crystallized after years of exploration.
In parallel, the spiritual dimension has occupied a central place in his life. Tovar conceives of himself simultaneously as an artist and a spiritual practitioner, granting equal weight to esoteric inquiry, meditation, conscious breathing, reading, and the study of the hidden energies of nature. These concerns nourish the imagery of his works and shape his understanding of the creative process, as well as art’s capacity to affect the inner experience of those who encounter it. For him, spirituality constitutes the core from which his entire production is organized.
One of the most persistent impulses in his practice is the construction of coherent visual worlds—a form of worldbuilding— inspired by the closed and complex universes of fantasy cinema and literature. Within these worlds emerge beings, territories, and dynamics of their own, capable of dialoguing both with one another and with everyday reality. The creation of these characters and scenarios unfolds through two complementary paths: on the one hand, an investigation close to the anthropological, grounded in stories, lived experiences, and direct observation; on the other, the free exercise of imagination, where the fantastic unfolds without restriction. These two dimensions intertwine, allowing what is researched to nourish what is imagined, and what is imagined to offer keys for understanding collected narratives.
The purpose of his work, as manifested in the body of pieces that make up Faerie, is to touch inner fibers and produce a kind of tuning-fork effect. In Tovar’s words: “If one nervous system is calm, the other may also become calm. In the same way, when a painting is charged with mysticism and magic—supported by research, dedication, and depth—its action occurs not so much through an intellectual exercise as through the activation of certain inner zones of the person: the subconscious, the heart, and deep memory.”
His paintings seek to enable the remembrance of forgotten beliefs and to reopen the playful, childlike capacity for wonder. In this gesture, the connection to nature is not limited to the vegetal or the landscape, but points toward the essential nature of life and the invisible dimensions that sustain it. It is about awakening curiosity, recalling moments when one believed in such things, thought about them, or had an experience that remains latent.
Thus, Guillermo Tovar’s artistic practice takes shape as a life project oriented toward restoring a sensitive relationship with the hidden, the mysterious, and the spiritual dimensions of existence. His work aspires to accompany or reactivate this perception in those who encounter his images, inviting them to reconnect with what the practical and ordinary world so often leaves in silence.
