ARTIST STATEMENT

I was born in Argentina in 1964. My exposure to art was very limited in those days, and I had to rely on my imagination to fuel my artistic drive. Sometimes it would be spurred by the world around me, such as a particularly memorable moment of staring at the shadows and reflections of light dancing on the roof. My father taught me how to draw trees. Little did I know, trees, and landscapes as a whole, would be the fulcrum of my later career as a professional artist. 

Growing up, the written word stimulated my ravenous creativity. Works of Latin American authors such as Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, and later, foreign writers like Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe, occupied my vacant hours – especially during my mandatory military service. 

It is therefore no surprise that my earliest works were often narrative and arguably political. Some of my first paintings were based on photos of Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” as well as a piece about the Falklands war, but based on World War II photos. 

After the fall of the dictatorship and the Falklands (Malvinas) war, Buenos Aires was buzzing with a pent-up creativity that exploded into a vibrant, young underground art movement in which I was raring to participate. I sold my first painting not at a conventional gallery, but at a shabby shelter called “La Zona” that was the exciting new venue for live painting sessions, performances, and auctions. I joined the group “Los Ultimos Pintores” (The Last Painters), and later collaborated with other artists for the “D Line Project,” painting panels on the Callao subway station. 

As time went on, my paintings, and creative process became more ascetic and conceptual. In 1988, I created the “H series,” based on the letter which is mute and therefore absent in Spanish. I aimed to remedy that injustice by depicting in colors various items starting with the letter H, such as hotel, humo (smoke), and honor – rendering the inaudible visible. 

It is perhaps fitting that my evolution as an artist led to my present-day abstract style and process, which are at once completely different yet strikingly similar to those in my past. 

Like before, I’ve returned to landscapes, but instead of realistic trees, I paint the impression, the feeling, and the memory of trees. 

Like before, I collaborate – not with other artists, but with free-flowing and unpredictable ink and water which in many ways, gives agency back to nature as the original artist. 

Painting this way is both liberating and restrictive. On one hand, my chosen medium – watercolor on paper and cloth – flows and spreads on a path of its own choosing. It is not shackled by the rules and aesthetics of realist landscape painting. 

On the other hand, this medium is incredibly unforgiving. There is an immediacy and permanence in abstract watercolor. Once the paint meets the paper, there is no repentance.  

It is my role simply to serve as the visual conductor of water and colors. It is an exercise in faith.