BETWEEN THE HORROR AND THE SUBLIME
Interview with painter Daniel Arroyo
Hello, my name is Daniel Arroyo
I am Spanish and I am 29 years old
I would like to present my work to eRenlai readers
I studied at Beaux Arts of Paris
I graduated in November 2010
I want to settle in Taipei
Most of the paintings hung here are from the fifth year of my diploma
I brought them especially from Paris
My work process
starts with taking pictures in the public space
Anonymous people
I'm interested in spontaneous models
When there is no preparation of the scene
I'm interested in the elusive and temporal point of view
At the moment,
I mostly choose...
my attention is mostly attracted by scenes with children
unordinary scenes
with handicapped people
Just scenes that are less ordinary than the usual anonymous ones 0:01:36.000,0:01:38.777 I then add deformity
But I'm primarily interested in the originality of a scene
A different and unexpected point of view
The father who takes out his daughter and gives her an icecream
There I zoomed in
It was a bigger photo, I zoomed in
The people didn't know at all that they were taken in photo
This is what interests me too
In a way I am also intruding in their private lives
Once the picture is finished on the computer
Which can take several weeks
I use a projector to transfer the drawing to the canvas
Or I draw by hand, it depends
Then I start the process of painting
Which can be very long too It can easily take several months
I have been working on this for one week
I've just begun the first layer of paint
Later I'll add successive layers
Until I will have reached a degree of detail that I like, that I'm satisfied with
As for example here
But my goal is not to copy the aesthetic of the photo Pixel by pixel
I am not a slave of the photo It is just a tool for me
I am keen on the European pictorial tradition
That is to say a classic aesthetic mixed with photo
A rather light pictorial touch As you can see here for example
Where one does not insist too much on details
But is more flexible with the pictorial material
The painting should be predominant on the photo and not the contrary
I don't like to be the slave of the computer and the photo
It's a tool for me
This painting is the one...
...which started my interest for the buddhist iconography
I had taken a long series of photos
of a child who was playing with his games console in Paris
And then I chose one where he is isolated...
... and at the same time surrounded by people
This is an aspect that interests me a lot
The fact that when we are in the metro We are surrounded with people yet isolated in our intimacy
I like the idea of inserting something sacred into this temporal community
Like this Buddha child
A kind of miracle that happens in reality
but without knowing its source and its explanation
You have to let the mystery live in the image
I think that anybody can go through this kind of metamorphosis but...
The starting point was this photo with that child
He already had a spiritual look
He reminded me of a sculpture of Buddha
That became a trigger, which led me in this direction
Thus, it's an idea that can suit anybody, I think
As I just said, the photo is just a tool for me
So I don't care if the photo is not taken with the same camera, the same quality and definition
I am only interested in the instant the photo was taken
Here it was taken with a mobile phone A first generation phone with a very bad camera
But it also gives interesting plastic results Most of all with the pixelation effects
I add filters that make the image look even more 'raw'
What interests me is the insertion of a cultural element that is stranger to the scene itself
I also worked with Christian religious iconography
With religious patterns of the Virgin Or other religious symbols
I am not really interested in the concrete symbology of this gesture, of this element
but rather in the result that rises from this confrontation
While I modify elements of the reality with very violent and organic elements
I also want to modify this reality with cultural elements
That is to say to insert an element of a certain aesthetic from...
... from the Eastern iconographic culture for example on peoples' faces
This intrusion obliges people to do what I want
In that case it means...
... to have a body completely enslaved to a certain aesthetic of a religion, of a culture
As I have been attracted for a long time by the Eastern aethetic
It was logical for me to start working with Buddhist elements
Or Taoist, any decorative element from an Eastern source
I can show you the original image
It's a modification
We see a father with his child
It's completely spontaneous, there is no preparation
To get a very consistent result You need to put in a lot of work
And add filters
In order to make the image become real or possible
To present a reality that is extraordinary and credible at the same time
For the organic aspect
I use a lot of things
From parts of the abstract paintings that I draw and modify myself
To photos of body parts, operations
And photos of accidents, photos that are...
...really horrible
Photos that...
...belong to the world we don't see
A world that exists but that we are happy not to see every day
In fact one of the things that interest me the most in my work
is to capture the instant
when we contemplate one of these scenes
where the interest for the human body is brought out
Because somehow people's psyche
has at the same time a terrible and sublime side
I like this surpassing of taboos
To work on this very thin line between the horror and the sublime
This sentence could summarize my work
In short