The New York artist on display for the first time in Italy at the Hysteria Art gallery
“Mindful living is a choice to look beyond the surface and what flows deep into ourselves and how we connect with the world around us. I believe in conscious painting; creating works of art as a means to reflect society, generate awareness and social intervention”.
This is what art is for the New York visual artist Clementine. To be able to inspire and open eyes through the creative act, with an approach capable of instilling awareness and change in those who look at the work of art. Reflecting the world in a way that can be shared with those who are not embarking on an exploratory journey, but are ready to receive the message from one of them.
And so, in a period of drastic evolution for the artist’s soul, a journey through the most remote villages of East Africa, marked by poverty where children and orphans find themselves, every day, having to face adversities of all kinds and nature that threaten their lives, their existence, Clementine’s latest artist effort comes to life entitled: “Being Selfless in a Selfie World“.
A collection in which the narcissism prevalent in social media – made up of ostentation, mass consumerism and self-consumption – is superimposed on the world, the real one, and the adversities that afflict it.
Each work of art consists of two parts: a painting on canvas and a painting on plexiglass that covers the canvas.
Canvas paintings are mixed media, in which the canvas images are converted through a photo transfer process. The colors of the painting and the inspirational elements of the region are abstract on the canvas, allowing the photographic images to appear in artistic form.
The paintings on plexiglass, “art filters”, have paintings of lips representing a selfie pucker. The lips are painted backwards, leaving a free space (the shape itself) to see through the colored canvas behind it.
The work as a whole is a call to action for society to look beyond the self. The beauty of the art experience is that no matter what, it’s already a win for someone to simply see the work. The very act of seeing art is already an act of awareness, as the viewer looks beyond the filter of the selfie and looks into a world of others who need our attention.
EXHIBITION INFO:
When: 9 October – 9 November 2019
Vernissage: 9 October 2019 from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm
Where: Hysteria Art Gallery – Via A. Cappellini, 20 (MI)
INFO/PHOTO COURTESY: Hysteria Art Gallery
Chiara Mattavelli
