Santiago Quesnel: The Daydreamer and the Bucolic Life He Will Never Get

Charlotte, North Carolina – Latin American Contemporary Art (LaCa) Projects presents The Daydreamer and the Bucolic Life He Will Never Get, an exhibition of new work by Argentinian artist Santiago Quesnel. This will be the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Using images from places all over the world, including found images and photographs he takes himself, Santiago Quesnel’s paintings create a new, handmade universe, juxtaposing imagery from different viewpoints as a celebration of nature. Remnants of landscapes or simple details are repeatedly overlaid on colorful backgrounds and foregrounds, resulting in a melancholic, atmospheric world that is all his own. Many of these works, painted on tracing paper, take on a sense of fragility, comparable to that found in nature itself. Some describe a scene, or the weather, while other works speak more formally or abstractly, following a more conceptual language. 

Quesnel states: “The most distinct aspect of what I do is reducing a scene to its essentiality, or what I interpret that essential state to be. This gives the viewer a sense of what is important to me—the creation of an atmosphere with as few objects as possible. I try to create the space and the surrounding scene through light, shadow, and even aura. My work exudes a sense of suspension between breaths, which is often palpable during my creation process.”