Jorge Santana seeks to convey in his work that technology reflects the identity of those who use it

The painter Jorge Santana Carvajal wants the public to understand that technology is a mirror of the identity of those who use it. That inspired him to make the sample Painted screen, which occurs at the Bella Cultural Center of the Economic Culture Fund (FCE).

In an interview with The day, The multidisciplinary artist spoke about this new perspective shown in his works, in which he seeks that the viewer approaches classical art through current concepts of technology and design, as if it were the screen of a design program or an website.

“Unlike the previous sample, Cyberpintura, In this I wanted to reflect more about how people mold technology with their hands. It was an idea that I arrived after the long periods of alienation that emerged in the Covid pandemic. I was locked up and concentrated in specializing in the design aspects, ”said Santana Carvajal.

The artist said that this project was created when he was tired of contingency, to see excess computers screens, without having social contact beyond the video calls: I was up to the mother.

In your paintings you can see pieces such as The young woman of the pearl, of Rembrandt, as if it were a wallpaper; A Facebook profile of the Renaissance sculptor Miguel Ángel, and other pieces in which he seeks to put those ancient artists as if they present their work today.

“I really liked that the appearance of my pieces looks a bit misleading; it seems that nothing more a wallpaper is replicated, but it is a detailed picture. But I loved generating that the public thinks about what we leave embodied in the cyber world: all these things that today have replaced watches, notebooks, writing machines and even canvases.

These things are now part of our identity, they are an extension of us, they are our screen protectors, songs, drawings, images. They are part of our day to day, we modify them as Podemos and we are shaping. At that time I had the idea of ​​capturing the way we marked things with our personalityhe commented.

Nostalgia of the analog past

Santana Carvajal said she had a hard time entering the design, because her generation was not used to spending time on a computer: “For me, screens are like an extended notebook that we gradually mark with our identity.

“For many, the screen may be something unreal, but for those who live immersed in technology is our reality. I remember that when we were in the pandemic, for an online course or workshop we had to click on the icon of the little hand lifted to ask or talk. That puts you in debate: did you lift your hand or only tightened the mouse? That was what I wanted to play, ”he said.

The painter assured that for those who had to live the transition between the analog and the digital, the reality of before gives them nostalgia. We are grateful to technology and it would be very silly to deny their applications and the benefits it brings us, but there are aspects in which I would like to return to corporeality, hugs, proximity to others. We live that melancholy.

On his pieces, he said: “I like people to see that I painted as if it were a Van Gogh profile, but the painting is not about it, the narrative is: what would he in our reality? Would it change?

“The young woman of the pearl It looks like a selfi with a box to focus on the image like that of any phone, but in that reflection is my idea of ​​the girl’s identity, you see that she is on Facebook and has 50 messages without answering. For me it is a message on how society changed and is not going to stop.

“I am wonderful: ‘Look at everything on a cell phone: phones, annotations, calendars, appointments, emails, messages, photos with memes or modified.’ We cannot say that within all those things there are no vestiges of us,” he concluded.