Bio
Sebastian Riffo-Montenegro is a visual artist born in Chile. He has a degree in Design and works as an art director in the area of marketing and advertising. Along with this activity, he maintains a solid production of works of art that criticize the consumer society and the creation of social beliefs. Disposable artificial products envelop and define the behavior of man. The artist works with these images that we see in different media but that have a programmed expiration. By passing these images to a pictorial work, they lose their expiration and become timeless reflections of consumption.
Faceless figures in raincoats maneuver through deconstructed color-field backgrounds. Working with a selective palette and controlled lighting, Montenegro-Riffo reveals the intent of his work through veils of lucid colors and mysterious forms. Absence paradoxically presents clear criticism of current social mores. Through pictorial allegories, the paintings provoke the need to discern new meaning and awaken the tacit human condition of free will.
Artist Statement
My artistic investigation is based upon the study on the existing relationship between image, message, and receptor. By applying theories from anthropology, sociology and consumption behavior spheres, my technique aims to express an elaborated critique on the culture of consumption and the creation of societal beliefs. The work defies and reworks the semiotic triad: sign, object, and interpretant by challenging the viewer to step out of their comfort zone developed upon today’s image consumption.
The work’s literal strokes and meticulous techniques seem to offer an unquestionable realism, where images, textures, and palette are presented clear, frontal, and concrete. Nonetheless, my work inevitably urges the viewer to delve in to the series’ underlying mystery, reconsidering what is initially offered as mere imagery. Deliberately worked from photographic records, my pictorial imagery references directly to Walter Benjamin’s Mechanical Reproducibility theory, which defines our existing consumer society. Consequently, the series acts as a catalyst towards the critic on unconscious imagery consumption and the construction of societal beliefs--beliefs that are governed by our own social pillars, which ultimately deform our aptitude and right for free will. Worked from the palette selection, light control, and pictorial techniques, absence is paradoxically present in his work, operating as an even clearer sign towards this critique.
In my work, I manage to both veil and reveal the image, frankly referencing socio-cultural icons that historically have molded our unconscious discourse. Through these pictorial allegories, the work provokes the necessity to unveil the imagery, to discern and comprehend a new significance, reconsidering and awakening the tacit human condition of free will.
www.riffomontenegro.com
