NOW IS THE TIME Lluís Estopiñan 05.27 - 07.11.23

ReVers_B23

22 x 30 x 4 cm., collage of old photos on the back,

photographic liquid emulsion and paint on wood

"Now is the Time" has to do with some aspects of the series ReVers_B , Memory_Gap and Return to Sender related to the passage of time and how it conditions our present.

Now's the Time is the title of a Charlie Parker theme that Basquiat used in one of his paintings.

I believe that any reflection on memory as a constituent element of our identity, as well as its manipulation, revision and reinterpretation, only makes sense if it helps us live more fully, intensely and consciously in the present.

The present moment to which the title refers.

The only really important time.

ReVers_B19

22 x 30 x 4 cm., collage of old photos on the back,

photographic liquid emulsion and paint on wood

ReVers_B13

33 x 24 x 4 cm., collage of old photos on the back,

photographic liquid emulsion and paint on wood

The ReVers_B series revolves around the concept of "the other side" of things or people.

"The other faces" of reality or ourselves, recontextualizing and giving new meaning to images and media.

Suggestive backs of old photos with inscriptions, stains, numbers and remains of paper and glue from having been torn from the albums where they have been in the dark for years, serve as a basis for developing in the laboratory an image of people photographed from behind (reverse on reverse), or in a meditative attitude.

With this work I want to reflect on the instability of memories and the difficulty of approaching memory with minimal reliability.

Memory_Gap 46

40 x 50 cm., liquid emulsion and rice paper collage

and photographic filter on Fabriano paper

Memory_Gap 06

50 x 40 cm., liquid emulsion, pencil

and collage on Fabriano paper

In Memory_ Gap I address memory gaps and how we fill them as we wish, building our identity with our own universe.

I like to think that the memory that constitutes us as people is largely our creation. That they are not stored objective facts, but recreations of experiences and knowledge passed through the filter of emotions and that this allows us to transform and mold ourselves.

Various communicative materials, especially photographs, related to other types of memory fill photographic “gaps” alluding to the universe of photography itself, in a photographically self-referential work.

Return to Sender 24

32 x 42 cm., liquid emulsion, acrylic paint

and collage of stamps on Fabriano paper

Return to Sender 34

24 x 32 cm., cyanotype, crayon, acrylic paint

and collage of stamps on Fabriano paper

The Return to Sender series revolves around the concept of recovery, intervention and return to the sender, making it public, of images from old anonymous photographic material.

The stamps introduce a signifier of double communication, postal and as an artistic object, and a certain play with the concepts of value, power, validation and plastic visual counterpoint.

Lluís Estopiñan