THE TECHNIQUE

Probably a good gallery would write: "Digital Prints and Mixed Media on Iron" which definition, besides informing that a digital print, some iron and other, not identified stuff, are used, is not really helpful, but it may be useful to keep some sort of mystery on the work and how the "artist-magician" put it together. A smaller gallery, or a cultural center, would accept a longer explanation: "Digital Inkjet Prints on Paper glued on Iron Sheet and covered with a layer of synthetic double-component resin". Me, having at my disposal plenty of space, and not really worried to bother people with many words, I'll be even longer:

-These are "works" from digitally -borne photographs which files have been worked on a computer.

-After having been sized at their final dimension (between 4x3 and 4x6 feet) the files have been divided into smaller parts and printed on several double letter-size paper.

-The parts have been then glued on an iron sheet and in some cases I panted on them, glued things of different nature, or simply made them dirty.

-The last is a coat of a synthetic double-component resin laid with a brush which, besides making everything glossy, having a sort of thickness, tones the images with a yellowish color and gives uniformity to the whole.

NOSE YEARS HANDS MOUTH EYES

This is what we are given (in most cases) to feel sensations.

Visual arts, as the word says, is about (or should be) what eyes can transmit to our heart.

Photography is the media I mostly relate to, and photography, more than any other discipline, is assumed with eyes and nothing else, having no smell, no third dimension texture, no sound and, unless you're nuts and you want to bite one, no taste.

Well, this bi-dimensional only visual characteristic of photographs is "The Thing" that always bothered me.

I love to feel things with my hands; I love to touch as much as I love to look.

Try to feel with your hands a photograph: WHAT A SENSATION!!

Well, the Why of the technique lies in this unsatisfaction of sensations: my feelings are not fulfilled.

The series "Haitian Portraits" is just a start, a try to solve the problem, and a try with which I can say to be happy with.

All the elements are there to remind you that something happened between the shot and the view. A man, who happens to be an artist, played with the sheet of paper composing the image. At that time he had dirty hands, and dust and hair are visibly included in the resin. The glossy surface is there to remind you that you are in an interactive environment, that if you look at the image from one position you may not have reflections, but PLEASE move a bit to the right and you'll see what a fantastic ball of light my photo is now. NO, don't move, try to see how the image is now transformed, how, just with a step to the right, you where able to do more than I was with hours of work on the computer.