February 6, 2010 until February 27, 2010 // Cella Gallery // North Hollywood, CA
"I have always felt like I was living between two worlds. In each, I was a different person, always hyperaware of my surroundings. Every gesture amounted to a self-conscious performance. In images, I felt improperly represented. I grew to disassociate with my own reflection in imagery and thus became skeptical of the images of others.
Every day I take in countless pictures, many of which encourage me not to ask questions, but rather to just accept their truths. While they may appear to be candid, they are capturing both pose and performance. I am compelled to create images using others as props, stand-ins and doubles for myself. While typical portrait subjects want to demonstrate their power and import, the subjects in my paintings are isolated and aware that they are being watched. They are barely there, reduced by the act of creation.
The series of small paintings are styled after paparazzi images and photographs commonly found on social networking sites. The voluminous production of such images allows for banality and loss of context. Rendered in a photorealistic style, these paintings receive a physical presence that gives weight to the images. They act as anti-portraits that reduce an experience to a singular expression of denial. The pose of the subject is a response to being identified and singled out by the creator for the benefit of the viewer. In the large paintings, the same ideas have been extended to the more straightforward traditional full portrait. In this style, the images are more claustrophobic and confined and so are the subjects. They exist in spaces bound by limitations with no possibility of autonomy. In order to maintain the narrative constriction, the paintings required additional elements, surrealist textures and coverings still rendered in the photorealist style. These impositions of the creator generate tension while making a traditional format more open to interpretation. These subjects are trapped in a moment and are vulnerable to projection. They sit, isolated in pure emotion and expressions of grief, fear or angst."
- Jeff Ramirez
www.cellagallery.com
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