Aritst and co-owner at Imaginarium: the Studio

 

 

My work explores the connections between people. These connections can be social or familial, related to physical space between people or an intangible bond. I digitally collage photographs and then paint from these collages. I paint in order to maintain the human touch. It signifies my connection to the persons I paint and communicates some of myself to the viewer. Painting has the ability to make visible that which is not perceptible in a photograph and reflect the artist’s subjective view. My aim is to visually engage and reward the viewer by presenting something alluring, engrossing, and sometimes surreal. My works are indented to be open-ended scenes or narratives that the viewer can think about and take further in their mind in their own way. I question reality by combining incongruous elements and making visible the invisible. I attempt to subvert the automatized perception of images by making strange, thereby prolonging the experience of viewing the artwork. 

 

My aim is to paint contemporary images that have not been captured in the medium of paint before. To this end, I focuse my attention on internet meme versions of age old genres. I look at new ways in which people position or move themselves. My most recent work is part of a project called (Life)Like that explores the oscillating relationship between the real (physical) world and virtual reality, focusing specifically on the social media platform of Instagram. 

 

In my work I try to portray contemporary mundane imagery in paintings, as a means of celebrating current culture and recording this culture through painting as artist of past ages have done. It is questionable if digital images will have the same staying power as paintings have had. In my work I try to evoke a contemporary humanism, hoping that in a hundred or more years people will look back on our age with nostalgia. I  often use early religious icon imagery (gold surrounding the figure, the central placement of the figure, and luminescent light on the figure) to heighten images of millennials. This shows that what we perceive of as ideal changes through the ages; we must record the moment.

 

http://www.stateoftheart-gallery.com/art-by-alvira-ferreira/144