thoughts
Naturalistic surrealism
Plein air painting and drawing have been fundamental to my artistic development and I have a deep connection to the landscape and nature has remained a constant inspiration. In recent years, the analysis of the relationship between humanity and nature has become a key theme in my work. My work has a common spark with the devastating forest fires that have become so frequent in recent years and are still raging in many parts of the world.
My works combine surreal and hyper-realistic naturalism, human remains encoded in nature, their intertwining reflects the inextricable ties between man and nature despite the rapid pace of technological and economical development. The surrealist elements distract the viewer from the streamlined sprawl of nature and aim to associate natural beauty with real problems, ecological and human catastrophes.
The only remedy for our self-loathing caused by the destruction of nature by our own hands is to return to the beauty that nature has to offer, to embrace it, to show all the wonders and splendor that nature has in store for us, from which we have been so conceited as to alienate ourselves.
In an age when people tell themselves that an image "created" by a data-collection algorithm is art, creating by hand is perhaps more important than ever before - even if some of the artwork takes a week to create, and some can take more than a month. If we want to avoid people actually believing that the activity of a data-collecting algorithm that creates a mere spectacle, an empty surface, is really art, then the hand, that creates along with the human mind and soul, the tangibility of art is more important than ever.
Man's greatest pride has always been to try to separate himself from the nature he scorned, but could never really control. He has fancied that he could put the crown on his own head by alienating himself from the nature in which he lives and trying to recreate it mechanically. He believed that he was moving away from reality towards utopia and was ultimately mired in dystopia: a disillusioned, unbalanced world, burnt-out masses of people, treadmills, wars, environmental destruction, inequalities. But everywhere man has retreated, nature is taking over again. Metal, plastic, polycarbonate, but if we do not 'clean it ', out of profound arrogance, moss, insects, grasses and all kinds of small animals will reappear.
It is not possible to be alienated from nature: it is only a vain dream. Nature is within us, we are nature, from the smallest components of our cells to our most ambitious dreams of becoming disembodied, pure digital forms of consciousness, and of instantly believing ourselves to be immortal. Nature will nevertheless act on us in exactly the same way as before: our digital consciousnesses will have to be stored in some kind of medium, and that medium will invariably be subject to entropy.
Bio-mechanical surrealism
Reality, the natural landscape, undergoes a metamorphosis, revealing a grotesque world bordering on surrealism. The grotesque, bizarre visual language is embodied in the beauty of detailed hand-drawing. The contrast between the beautiful and the grotesque is the antithesis of transience and rebirth, so that underneath the symmetry is chaos and in the grotesque is beauty. This recurring cycle is a metaphor for the circular dance of life and death.
Death, the grotesqueness of decay and the proliferation of life, the eternal rebirth and beauty of nature, these two forces, despite their coexistence, exist in harmony and animate our existence, giving impetus to my art, as a constant source of inspiration and recurring theme.
In these drawings, the view is very complex, and here too I learn from nature, the closer you look at a formation, the more complex it is, the more you can discover the miniature proliferation of its components, as in biology and physics. Reality is stranger than fiction; if this miracle, let's call it the miracle of life, makes the observer wonder, then what I have to say has hit the mark.