(This piece is part of the show Needful things II at Rodzlo gallery in Berlin)
Artists have always painted still lifes either because they sell well or because they are the perfect model. They are decorative and since the Flemish merchants began to buy them, they are a guarantee for the painter’s subsistence since they do not bother anyone or are associated with political or deep meaning issues. This is the aspect of still lifes that interests me the most, because it seems to me that it is a facet to be exploited. Even the most banal physical objects store very powerful cultural meanings and somehow absorb identities and customs or entire eras. In fact, that is the value by which we usually appreciate ancient works of art as unique objects, even when we know that half of the museums are collections of forgeries. Because we think those objects contains the history inside. This is also why NFTs are still meaningless and just a speculative product (art is too, but adds other meanings to its value). Objects need passage of time to reveal their meaning.
Sometimes I paint still lifes from photographs, inspired in old paintings or in a more abstract and symbolist way. But lately, I try to face them from the real, so that they go to a two-dimensional plane and finally to the virtual plane, which is where everyone is going to see them in a one second scroll down. So that the work becomes a link between the two worlds.
