Increased communication, travel and migration are affecting the way we live
These images were made in Huddersfield during a period of time when I was moving to Barcelona. They reflect both my old life and my new life, with ideas and motifs appropriated from at least four artists.
The "Capvespres" series was born out of a number of journeys: to Colera to discover the word "capvspres"; around the streets of Barcelona to find the appropriated artworks; from Huddersfield where most of the life drawings were made; to Maine from whence the tissue paper came (re-cycled from my wedding); and, surfing the internet to look at images of collage. Without each of these journeys, this series could not have existed as it does now.
Our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe
Our quotidian journey is so full, it's impossible to see the manhole cover for the road.
Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of culture
These works were made for a proposal for the "Drap Art" Exhibition 2008. "Drap" means junk or rubbish. They were made from my own rubbish, and I recycled ideas from major artists, who I think many Spanish people haven't even heard of; Carl Andre, Antony Gormley and Martin Creed. My artistic cultural heritage started in the UK, but has since taken in Europe, the USA and Central America. And the links here in Spain with South America, and the use of the internet to see what's happening in China, South Korea and the rest of the world all must have some influence on my thought process leading to my work.
This new universalism is based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing
Today's art explores the bonds that text and image, time and space, weave between themselves
Perhaps a bit literal, but these works are based on translating the phrase "Not everything you see is art" into Castellano and Catalan. The problem that needed solving was that the translation had to be in exactly 24 characters, so as to keep the form of the original layout of the words in English. We had to cheat, and use a sort of Argentinian Spanish. But I like cheating in my work.
The mechanical process of making these works involved cutting the letters out, placing them on a painted canvas and spray painting over them. The force of the spray caused some of the letters to move, producing some "ghosts" of letters. I used text to spell out literally what can be "seen through" the work where the canvas does not cover the whole of the frame.
Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication.
These collages, created in old drawers, are not only colour studies, but cultural studies. Starting with pages from "Don Quixote" artistic cultural items (flyers, postcards etc. ) are combined with objects from the whole of life.
Here I am creating my own signs, my own language of forms, form, volumes, volume, constructs and constructions, all ultimately based on the question "who are you, where are you, why are you, when will you be?"
