Düsseldorf, Germany – Carlos Estévez participates in group exhibition of Cuban Art at Gericke + Paffrath Gallery.
Carlos Estévez on his creation process:
Art for me is a learning process. It is my way of understanding life. My work is very connected to my own experience. What I think, what I feel, and all my dreams are contained in my artwork.
My process is similar to the process of alchemists. They were looking for the formula to make gold, and what they found instead was knowledge. My goal is to find knowledge through art. I want to translate my life experiences into images and share them with other people. I think that art is a magic form of communication and the key is to look at yourself as deep as possible so that you can communicate with the deepest territories of others.
The source of my work is the human existence. Of course, my work is influenced by what I read, which is mainly philosophy. However, I don’t transfer any concept to my art intentionally. It doesn't work that way. I read a book and I use it as fuel for my brain. What I get from readings could be far from its original intentions. I do my own interpretation and this becomes the inspiration for my work. I never know exactly what, how, and when it is going to happen, but one day an image appears that is connected with something I’ve read.
I work in different media –painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, and finding objects. I jump from one to the other and this sequence is interrupted constantly. The work that I do reflects my inner world, and it must be done with all the complexity that this process requires. That is why it need to be very detailed. Every single element is important: the background images, colors, textures, lines and the title.
The fragments are the way in which we think. The thinking process or the perception process as a whole is not linear or compact. My obsession is to discover the meaning of life. Why are we here in this universe? This transcendental answer can perhaps never be answered, or perhaps it has many different answers. One thing is for sure, neither science nor history can reach the human knowledge that art achieves.
Art for me is a learning process. It is my way of understanding life. My work is very connected to my own experience. What I think, what I feel, and all my dreams are contained in my artwork.
My process is similar to the process of alchemists. They were looking for the formula to make gold, and what they found instead was knowledge. My goal is to find knowledge through art. I want to translate my life experiences into images and share them with other people. I think that art is a magic form of communication and the key is to look at yourself as deep as possible so that you can communicate with the deepest territories of others.
The source of my work is the human existence. Of course, my work is influenced by what I read, which is mainly philosophy. However, I don’t transfer any concept to my art intentionally. It doesn't work that way. I read a book and I use it as fuel for my brain. What I get from readings could be far from its original intentions. I do my own interpretation and this becomes the inspiration for my work. I never know exactly what, how, and when it is going to happen, but one day an image appears that is connected with something I’ve read.
I work in different media –painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, and finding objects. I jump from one to the other and this sequence is interrupted constantly. The work that I do reflects my inner world, and it must be done with all the complexity that this process requires. That is why it need to be very detailed. Every single element is important: the background images, colors, textures, lines and the title.
The fragments are the way in which we think. The thinking process or the perception process as a whole is not linear or compact. My obsession is to discover the meaning of life. Why are we here in this universe? This transcendental answer can perhaps never be answered, or perhaps it has many different answers. One thing is for sure, neither science nor history can reach the human knowledge that art achieves.