Berlin, Germany
Biography:
Growing up in a colony and “Third World” country has made me conscious and curious of the relationships between figures of authority and the powerless. I see my art-practice as an analogy of the political relationships between municipal groups and the public. My role as art maker is both a colonizing force (perhaps, simply the colonizing of canvas) and a vote-less viewer of the political theater.
Coupled with my fascination of political conflict, particularly of Latin America, I have an insatiable obsession with documentary films. In the past, I’ve produced films. But it is the desire to create and inhabit the “truthful” storytelling that I’m most compelled by. I’ve begun painting depictions of the documentary fantasies I catch myself having: painting the scenes of the film with abundant silver, poetically suggesting the material of projected celluloid.
I’m also taken with the clichés and poetics of subtitling. The visual translation of language in subtitle is fascinating to me for its beauty and potential humor. As English is my second language, I find it poignant to have my paintings address the audience, or me the viewer, through the foreign-film subtitle.
These worlds of politics and poetics, of fiction and truth, are tightly intertwined… my work is about looking at this complication.
Website: www.osvaldobudet.com
