installation. Metafora Studios. Barcelona, Spain
Unknown strangers of Barcelona. A Series
I have always been deeply disturbed by the passage of time. An obsessive inventory of memories as a child evolved into an unsettled feeling as an adult. Constantly mourning an ever evolving existence.
I have always seen my relationships to people as a primary marker of the passage of time in my own life. Relationships with family and friends evolve, becoming a visible and tangible manifestation of time past. Seeing its effects on those around me and even more grievous on those not.
Art is a primary marker of time for history. Stories of the world are shared in tangible form and archived by the physicality of art, passed through cultures or displayed in museums. The archival inventory of stories of human existence are captured by artists in effort to memorialize and extend the life of a moment beyond its expiration date.
My art practice is an archival of my life and relationships, capturing my experience of the world through those around. Previous iterations of my work have explored the temporality of life through the intimacy of close familial relationships.
Temporality has taken on new meaning as I find myself alone in Barcelona with a pre-described finite number of days and absence of pre-existing relationships. My tendency to turn outwards to people around me as a guiding clock has become increasingly difficult as interactions are fleeting. In this absence of sentimental attachments I haveI found myself seeking out affinities towards the momentary passings I shared with strangers, brief observations of time shared with the unnamed figures on trains or park benches.
Barcelona is an empty catalog to be filled with an inventory of characters of my choosing.
I have embarked on an ethnographic study of the people I pass as a way to archive my time in the unknown. A process that dispels anxiety and indulges my need to extend time through the repetitive, extensive nature of re-creating a moment through paint.
Grasping for connections to my temporary space I impose my own perceptions of the people I encounter, projecting narratives into the scenes inspired by observation and determined by imagination. The characters I encounter become my own as I manipulate the subjects and material application with surrealist tendencies towards color, proportion and space to further engage with the stories I have created. Characters take on playful and imagined personas as I find comfort and joy in their presence.
I invite the viewers to engage with the characters' narratives as openly as I have, because after all they are unknown.
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Don’t talk to strangers. acrylic on canvas. 2023. 105 x 110 cm
Gossip Girls. acrylic on canvas. 2023. 105 x 82 cm
Bad knees and grocery shopping. acrylic on canvas. 2023. 102 x 129 cm
Candy, homework and most importantly football
