Biography
I draw, paint and read ever since I was a child. However, it was only when I turned 28 that I systematically started attending an atélier and taking exercises in life drawing. I studied a little bit of Art History in Florence and in Buenos Aires. I started out with Naïf painting, and exhibited my paintings in Argentina, Switzerland and Belgium. In 2000, I received a proposal that made me think on what was trying to achieve through painting, and began gradually switching to geometric abstraction, which is what I currently do now. I kept those two variables that I think represent me the best: colour and geometry. I took painting lessons with Tomás Fracchia, I painted at Silvia Gurfein’s atelier and attended Tulio de Sagastizábal’s art clinics.
Paralelly, I have always been interested in literature, and my sources often are as literary as they are pictorial. That is why at the same time as I paint, I do research on textual semoiotics at the Master’s Degree in Discourse analysis (DA) at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).
My last exhibitions took place in 2004 (Objet de Culte) and in 2007 (Sintagma), at Elsi del Río art gallery. I also exhibited my paintings in Hermès, Alvear Fashion & Arts, Expotrastiendas and the Oficina Proyectista, in Buenos Aires.
Vision of art
1. Choose a work that represents you, describe it in relation to its format and materiality, its relation with time and space, its style and theme; detail its production process.
I choose this work, “S9”, for it was the last one of the last exhibition that I did and it clearly shows the path through which I’m currently going. I also work a lot on small formats, though this is not precisely the case.
It’s an oil on canvas –the technique I use- and I think it illustrates pretty well the interest on the role I think colour plays in abstraction, because of the way in which all of its argumentative skills emerge.
I feel this painting shows my obsession, my perfectionism and my love towards symmetry, plain colours and pure lines in plain view.
I generally listen to music while I work. I specially enjoy jazz, Bach, Satie, abstract and electronic music; though there are times when I need to paint surrounded by absolute silence.
I usually start out doing a little sketch, inspired by a certain form or shape that draws my attention, or a particular combination of colours that seems attractive to me and that I inevitably link to some text or group of texts. I then amuse myself doing mathematical calculations, looking for proportions, coming up with some secret rule that gives coherence to the painting and its inner architecture. At that point, guided more by my emotion than by pure logic, I choose a colour and abandon myself to a quasi-magical process in which I no longer can tell if it’s my unconscious or the colour itself that asks for a magenta rather than for a green, or a blue and not an orange. I work using thin layers of oil and it doesn’t upset me to move away from what my original idea was. I like to be surprised by my own painting.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
With the same honesty with which it was painted.
3. In reference to your work and your position in the national and international art fields, what tradition do you recognize yourself in? Who are your contemporary referents? What artists of previous generations are of interest to you?
I’m particularly interested in the geometrics, the abstracts and the concretes. That doesn’t prevent me from enjoying great artists that don’t fit within those traditions. If I have to come up with names, among the foreigners I would choose David Hockney, Aurélie Nemours, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Kasimir Malevitch, Peter Halley, Brice Marden, Alice Neel, Youry Jeltov, Max Bill, Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley (and many more). Among Argentine artists: Raúl Lozza, Tomás Maldonado, Roberto Aizenberg, Luis Centurión, Ary Brizzi, Tulio de Sagastizábal, Fabián Burgos, Magdalena Jitrik, Andrés Sobrino, Sergio Avello, Daniel Joglar (and also many more).
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
I think that the most significant exhibition was that of León Ferrari at the Centro Cultural Recoleta. On one hand because it managed to put an end to the nonsense that one of Argentina’s greatest artists didn’t have a place to exhibit his work in his own country. On the other hand, because the controversy it provoked exposed many of the aspects of art itself: its genuinely subversive character, and the variety of reactions it may cause. And, above all, because it was a real delight.
From a more personal point of view I’d like to highlight the exhibitions by Alighiero Boetti and Sol Lewitt at PROA, Tomás Maldonado at the MNBA, Luis Centurión at the CCR, Gego, Alfredo Volpi and the Colección Cisneros at MALBA.
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
Without getting into groups or tendencies, my perception tells me that there tends to be more and more places to exhibit one’s own work as time goes by, it seems to be more diversity and little by little we seem to be able to start leaving many prejudices behind. This may not come as a surprise for a 20-year old artist, for which I’m glad because it shows that there’s a certain “natural” state of possibilities and freedom that used to be very difficult to achieve and thus it deserves a celebration.
