All works in this series start from one or more original paintings, occasionally a digital photo, that are scanned and then digitally processed. The resulting image is printed on canvas and a second round of painting is done on it. Finally the canvas is sealed in resin.
acrylic on digitally printed canvas, resin, 33"x44"
oil & acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 44"x33"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 36"x36"
acrylic, resin on digitally printed canvas,33"x44"
oil & acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 32"x38"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 48"x24"
oil & acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 26"x42"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 44"x33"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 30"x42"
oil & acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 44"x33"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 30"x46"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 48"x28"
oil & acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 32"x44"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 36"x36"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 33"x44"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 33"x44"
poem by S. Beckett
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 30"x46"
acrylic, resin, on digitally printed canvas, 30"x46"
Multimedia assemblies combining variously painting, photography on light-boxes. video screens and etched glass.
Lambda print on light-box and three panes of etched glass, 38"x30"
Oil on canvas, three etched glass panes, fluorescent light and aluminum, 38"x30"
Oil & Acrylic on two canvases, etched glass and aluminum, 72"x60"
lambda prints on three light-boxes and video screen, 82"x38"
Million Stills installed
Oil and acrylic on canvas, six panes of etched glass, light, aluminum and wood, 48"x81"x15"
Oil & acrylic on canvas and glass and aluminum, 120"x14"
detail
digital print, oil & acrylic on canvas, etched glass and aluminum, 120"x14"
detail
Oil and acrylic on canvas and glass, and aluminum. 12'2X14"
detail
acrylic and digital print on canvas, 30"x44"
oil & acrylic on canvas, 92"x36"
acrylic on canvas, 72"x26"
oil & acrylic on canvas, 60"x36"
acrylic on canvas, 60"x36"
engraved acrylic, acrylic on canvas, 60"x36"
crylic on canvas, 36"x60"
acrylic on canvas, 36"x60"
acrylic on canvas, 36"x46"
Each Matrix is an assembly of a group of digitally processed images, each individually framed.
Most pieces include a text. Some are quotations from other sources, as indicated.
9 images, total size 39"x63"
"sobre tus mesas que nunca preguntan", E.S. Discepolo
9 images, total size 57"x39"
"always take the long way back home", Tom Waits
10 images, total size 64"x36"
"as we traversed in many vessels, some provided a structure to life, some just collapsed around us"
8 images, total size 51"x39"
"obliterates irrelevant/revealing nuances"
6 images, total size 39"x38"
"DISGRACED"
9 images, total size 57"x39"
"again the last ebb, the fading of the froth, the turning then the steps on sand, towards, towards the lights of old", based on S. Beckett
6 images, total size 42"X50"
"the coughing behind the wall, wakes me up, it's 5:30, every morning at five thirty, somebody coughs in the next room, that's how I can tell time", based on J. Marías
8 images, total size 51"x39"
7 images, total size 45"x39"
"coming out of the storm you are not the same, you have changed, that is the meaning of the storm", based on H. Murakami
The Mandalas are sets of Lambda print transparencies in light boxes
The term Mandala (from the Sanskrit: “that carries the essence”, or “support for the spirit”) refers to the circle-in-a-square powder paintings made by Tibetan monks depicting the universe. The fragile mandala paintings are, in the eye of their creators, not works of art in-themselves but tools. Tools to create a space for the viewer to interact with the image to discover truths within him or herself. That is, supports for the spirit, tools for experience.
These works are Mandalas in the same sense, devices to provoke an interaction with the viewer, create a space for experience. They can be considered just tools that fulfill their purpose only when in interaction with the viewer.
Tools do things, and here is what these pieces do: they present the viewer with a set of images and texts, all of them signs that might be residuals left of a past experience or event that is not obvious or immediately identifiable. These symbols create a space in which the beholder engages in a process of remembrance, a game of artificial reconstruction or re-invention of a personal memory. At that point, in this interaction between the images and the viewer is where the esthetic event takes place. We could say that the artwork is in fact the story the viewer makes up while looking at the pieces
2 duratrans in light boxes, 74"x24"
In an acquired school foto faces look back. A second box shows the houses where these people used to live and long ago left behind
3 duratrans in light boxes, 72"x26"
words form a poem by Juan Gelman
4 duratrans in light boxes, 104"x18"
words from a poem by Vinicius de Moraes
4 duratrans in light boxes, 104"x 18"
words from a novel by H.Murakami
six duratrans in light boxes, 158"x18"
based on an original script
BD detail
4 duratrans in light boxes, 26"x75"
Discretionary, detail
3 duratrans in light boxes, 26"x54"
Let go, detail
3 duratrans in light boxes, 74"x18"
six lambda prints in light boxes and video monitor, 115"x65"
A text, printed through the faces in the 6 light-boxes, is spoken by talking-heads in the video stream in several languages overlapping each other: English, German, Spanish, French, Farsi, Libyan Arabic, Hebrew, Saudi Arabic, Korean, Norwegian, Sicilian, Italian, Hindu, Portuguese, Thai, Guarani. Various languages are repeated in different accents.
The text is: “I know that language is the instrument of memory, but I find it insufficient; you see, I can’t reconstruct the story to tell it to you. The word evades me.”
The sound track is by Laura Novoa.
"... the beholder responds to the ambiguity inherent in the work of art" Eric R. Kandel
These works, all digital monoprints, originate from the fact that a sizable percentage of our daily landscape comes from the screen.
As Husserl observed, symbols disconnected from their significant continue to stand on their own. Individual frames extracted from their original narrative by photographing the tv screen, become independent symbols carrying their own implications.
The exercise here is one of injecting ambiguity into this material by pairing two frames, picked in all cases from different sources and therefore not linked a priori.
It all depends on the underlying strategy matching two images that might, for instance, include a common element, a certain similarity of subject or by plain opposition, allowing the beholder to suspect an ambiguous relationship between the pair, maybe even a hint of a story.
A high resolution camera stood for months in front of a large scale HD screen capturing images that, in spite of the tools used, preserve their far-from-perfect quality.
These are works for four flat screens. Originating from the Readymade Stories they go one step forward, as each piece utilizes the pair of images from one of the monoprints in the previous series as basis for a statement (that is not quite an "epigram")
Mots is a large installation of six duratrans on light boxes and a video monitor.
Papelitos is a two monitor version in Spanish of a larger four screen piece.
Melancholie is a collaboration with the celebrated composer Francisco Kröpfl.
Silecio is a three large screens collaboration with Argentine composer Raul Lacabanne. It includes a fragment of Persona, by Ingmar Bergman.
1M stills is the video component of an installation of three duratrans on light boxes and a video monitor.
UBUici was produced for a show by graphic poet Carlos Luis Martínez at the Alliance Fançaise in Miami
for Carlos Luis M's show at the Alliance Française Miami
