Douglas de Souza
Artist Statement:
I like to think about my painting as a way of interconnecting what I experience in everyday life with imagery references
from art history, social media and daily life objects. Through my work, I want to create links between these subjects,
transforming them into a new reference. Once I visualize this new image in my mind, I begin to materialize it, sometimes through sketches and later with digital manipulation. After the image takes form, all concerns go into the making of the painting.
From an in-depth imagery research process, which builds up and overlaps itself, I find myself in images like swans, cars
and motorcycles, as they represent both my conceptual and pictorial interests and help me materialize these references
for this body of work. The representation of glossy, polished and colorful surfaces and the formal composition are based on still-life Flemish baroque as well as illustrations, band posters, album covers, fashion and graphic design mixed as part of pop culture that makes me want to create this universe that would not exist otherwise.
Oil painting, for me, speaks of time, labor and wait. When creating a figurative painting, I am also concerned about what the figures contain no matter how straight-forward the image might seem. There is an interest in this ambiguity in the
paintings. The swan portrayed as a porcelain object, the motorcycle metal surface and the car headlight in a cutout
that suggests an eye, are for me allegories about a gay experience of what masculinity is.
