How can painting or drawing confront a society saturated by images?
This is the main question I try to answer through my painting process. In this process, I normally take images I find on the Internet or style magazines used primarily for advertising or illustrating a concept, an idea or a product (in the end ads are also trying to illustrate something) and I transform them into non-concept compositions. What this means to do it take the already contextualized ‘ready’ image and transform it into something decontextualized and cut off of its initial purpose/use. But being in a non-concept environment is a concept in itself, so the end product (painting, drawings or collage) is in a constant concept / non-concept variation stage. The moment the work is shown in a new space whether this is digital, physical or ideological, it acquires a new meaning, a new interpretation and definition.
However, this interpretation and concept is subject to criticism by the art world and the society which to a grand extent decides what an art work can be. The work might suggest that it has a non-concept status but the environment might classify it otherwise. Therefore, my job at this point is to blur the limits as much as I can between what I consider a non-concept / concept artwork and criticism considers a good artwork. What I am always interested in is to explore these dynamics and understand through my work what makes a good or bad artwork, if such terms can apply to art.
The end product functions as an anti-illustration ‘activist’ placard, which again returns to the art historical point of opposition to concept, which constitutes a concept in itself.