Un Pasaje de Sueños

At the printmaking art residency, Proyecto Ace, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I painted the walls of an indoor passageway with an ephemeral work entitled “Un Pasaje de Sueños.” I was studying the evolution of mural painting in the city’s urban landscape and how it relates to prehistoric cave painting. Whilst meeting local street artists and having the privilege to also leave my transient marks on the graffiti clad walls of this dynamic South American city, I expanded my vocabulary into lithography and my scale to mural size.

Using lithography prints, collaging and tearing them away from the wall and alternating with latex paint and graphite, I found it combined the language in street art, cave paintings, and décollage. I associate the visual erasing and tearing away as similar to silence in music. The silence isn’t destructive but allows the rest of the visual sounds to be heard, to breathe. How does one relate the temporal concept of the passage in a visual language? How can décollage be used to get at what is essential in a work rather than as a destructive metaphor?

The fragmented nature of décollage and collage works well with dream imagery. Dreams act as a form of passage and a recollection of moments brought into the unconscious. The repetition of printmaking makes sense with reoccurring dreams. Where does the passage lead me, or why is this transitional space so important? It makes me think about cave paintings. The urgency of those first marks left in the dark caves and grottos were the first signs of communication and establishing a human passage.

Mural Installation at the Proyecto Ace art residency, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Exhibition Dates: September 4 - November, 2013

8 x 36 feet