MORE ABOUT ME / MY WORK
BACKGROUND
Born in Barcelona in 1976. Currently living in The Netherlands, where I studied language and history in high school. I went to the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam because I loved drawing as a child and had an interest in art, coming from a background in graffiti. It was a sobering but valuable experience.
I ended up working as a graphic designer after I developed an early interest in digital art tools, then still in their infancy. To be truthful I never thrived in the commercial environment of the advertising industry but always found an outlet in making art, writing poetry and experimenting with music. I released several ambient electronic music albums via record label Databloem in the early 2000s.
After studying Zen Buddhism and having a severe burn-out, I was forced to reevaluate everything, leading me to focus full-time on art. My art is where the mask comes off, where all of my interests converge.
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WHAT IS MY
WORK ABOUT
My work is about the human experience and how we perceive it through archetypal and metaphorical expressions, such as language and art. I am especially interested in the portrait and the face. Not only are they powerful social signals, they are linked to the emotional and cognitive processes that unfold when we encounter faces in our daily interactions.
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I like to explore themes of memory, identity and self in a time of rapid technological advancement. The impact it has on our mental health and sense of belonging and how we maintain our humanity. And in both an aesthetical and thematic sense, my artworks mirror this by the use of distortion, abstraction and modification.
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I am equally intrigued about the artists' ability to deconstruct and reassemble existing influences into a new art piece. To deconstruct is not to destroy. Deconstruction implies breaking something down into parts in order to gain a thorough understanding of the components it is made up of. That is why collage, poetry and transformation are so important to me. The process of selecting, rearranging, and combining materials allow symbolic representation, unconscious thoughts and emotions. It is freedom and simultaneously a journey inwards and outwards.
PROCESS AND
INFLUENCES
My work starts with a poem, a painting or a drawing. My earlier work also uses old magazine clippings. The drawings are created using traditional techniques on paper, canvas or wood board. I use colored pencils, oil paint, acrylic paint, acrylic markers, alcohol markers and spray paint in different combinations. I work fast to not lose that intuitive spark.
I use a high resolution scanner to digitize the painting/drawing and use specific combinations of digital filters. I also scan various brush marks, marker and spray paint strokes and hand-written poetry on paper, which I assemble into a collage. I also like to cover the image with scanned images of transparent plastic foils or sheets.
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The resulting artwork is printed on archival-grade premium cotton Hahnemühle paper using pigment inks.
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Influences on my work:
The evolution of the portrait throughout art history
The DIY ethic and rebellion of punk against established norms
Word-based, stylized lettering and tags in public spaces
The wide range of styles and techniques of modern art
Murals, stencils, stickers, and installations
Zen Buddhism, Stoicism and Philosophy