The Venezuelan artist Pablo Griss, who was born in Caracas and currently lives and works in Berlin, talks in his interview about the central message of his artistic work.
Please describe the core theme and the central message of your work.
Through painting, I explore the visual possibilities of energy and its qualities: magnetic fields, radiation, resonance, currents, and electromagnetic waves. These phenomena have been of interest to me as abstract concepts to visualize; my aim is not to illustrate them in painting or explain them as physical processes or diagrammatic interpretation, an equation.
I am interested in how these physical phenomena connect with some of my inner existential musings; looked at closely; most of our behavior reflects these incidents. These metaphysical concepts undoubtedly permeate my painting together with those questions that live within me and relate to life itself. I speak of metaphysics from a philosophical angle contemplating what happens beyond the material. In my work, contrasts, repetition, and symmetry are synthesized in the retina and shown on the surface of the painting; as the image of a “magnetic field”: vibrations beyond sheer visual effects are themselves the phenomenon. All these electric currents surpass my body and manifest in the painting. We are beings in a material world where these phenomena are part of us and our interactions.
Pablo Griss, Exhibition INTERVENTION, courtesy of Luisa Catucci Gallery
Introduce us to the work that, in your view, exemplifies or best embodies the message of your work.
It is a continuum. My work is a years-long exploration from different perspectives around the same topics. Aside from its technical qualities and digital appearance, there is an element in my work that gives life to the painting, perhaps in a poetic way, trying to get away from the formal graphic structures. When painting ceases to be governed by the usual elements as conceptualization through illustration, the use of coordinates, or the vehement obsession with the object, is when painting acquires epic importance. I enjoy traveling these uncharted dimensions.
What is the aim of your art, your work, what is it supposed to achieve in the viewer?
My work aims to be transformative, reflective, and Iconic. In this sense, I want to have an initial strong, almost intuitive impact that lures the viewer towards a more introspective and transcendental transformation experience. I undertake geometry, being careful not to fall into “graphic mannerism”, my interest focuses on the values that can be communicated and transcended poetically through painting. My painting is a strong presence that does not offer any literal or conceptual narrative. My work is not concluded on the surface; it covers much more. It is a two-dimensional surface, but it can take its observer to other non-ordinary planes outside known reality. This is where painting shows its most significant value: when it transforms from within.
THE DEED | THE WORK is a complementary and separately presented part of THE INTERVIEW IN|DEEDS with Pablo Griss.
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