On September 8th, Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles will host the opening reception for Paco Pomet’s latest solo show. Entitled Melancholia, the new body of work from Spanish artist once again is built on vintage photos as his source of inspiration which he then alters with some surreal twist. This time around, Pomet plays around with the different effects and affects of light, incorporating the sun and moon into his landscapes with some impossible scenarios.
He further explains – “Since my childhood, the observation of different states of light in certain landscapes has been the trigger, and in many cases the condition, which fostered an intense aesthetic experience. Generally associated with dusk, at twilight, although often embodied in the vertical and oppressive light of the summer midday, this intense experience before the light and the landscape could provoke fear and anguish on some occasions or, on the contrary, an overwhelming enthusiasm. The difference between a painful experience or an enthusiastic one rested in a certain whim of the spirit that I have not always been able to control.
In the majority of occasions this experience was translated into a joy, a reverential communion before the ecstatic beauty of the spectacular unfolding of the world. A celebration of ‘being in the world,’ a commemoration of ‘the figure and the landscape.’ But, in others, this experience was tinged with hurt before the immensity of the world along with the consciousness of lightness, smallness and finitude of one’s self-existence. In these cases, the landscape revealed itself as a sinister scenario where the changes of light were filled with threatening intentions, showing the disturbing vastness of the space as well as the awareness of the inevitable passage of time.”
Discuss Paco Pomet here.
