How do we keep connecting with the other in a 21st century hyper-individualistic society? What collective stories and narratives do we need to create, recreate and/or reinvent for this to happen?
On a conceptual level, I explore these collective stories that humanity has used to organize and structure different societies. These myths, fables, and stories are the backbone of religious and worldly power. They are what drives nations as well as people’s common and individual dreams.
To understand these stories is to understand the structure of the past, but also to be able to read a fictionalized imagination of the future.
In these figments, the utopia/dystopia story structure is at the inception of our beliefs about society. This narrative has been molded into myths about the Garden of Eden, Gods and men, Heaven and Hell,…. It provides an appealing juxtaposition to work with, often showing our humanity in despair and our hypocrisy in reaching for perfection.
Painting allows me to infuse this with my imagination to tell an invented autobiographic story, with at the centerstage different alter-egos as the protagonists of my stories. They are fictitious versions of myself, all embodied by the same template, a 3D sculpted version of my body, but each as different entities.
The stage wherein these entities live is a subject in itself. These spaces are windows into a dream reality. I see myself living in them, yet they are inaccessible and impossible.
They play a central part in the narrative, interchanging context between the different elements of the image while their structure conveys meaning.
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