The Flowers Are Blooming Again But They Have No Scent
FOST Gallery is proud to present Luis Antonio Santos’ first solo exhibition in Singapore, The Flowers Are Blooming Again But They Have No Scent.
The paradoxical title of the exhibition is a quote from the 1970 Soviet science-fiction film The Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, a cerebral investigation into the journey of self-discovery that explores the dimensions of consciousness. Die-hard fans of the film are known to remember it differently each time they watch it. This shifting of perspectives resonates in Santos’ works, with his use of unusual materials and laborious processes, our first assumptions of what a work of his might be about is turned on its head the more we look at it. For example, Untitled (Structures), the diptych of a painting of a distorted galvanized iron sheet, is placed next to the actual sheet. They seem identical but they are not, and in fact, the painting can never be an identical reproduction. Similarly with his monochromatic paintings of covers (Void I and II) used to protect existing artworks, these covers are elevated to a subject matter, themselves worthy of painting, and which, presumably will need their own protective covers, which in turn inspire another painting.
It is a variation of the Droste effect, where a picture recursively appearing within (though in this case, over) itself, in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. His unique screen-printing process of these iron sheets again play to our assumption that these are simple and direct facsimiles of the objects, where in fact it is more complex to produce.
In addition, Santos plays with notions of invisibility, by bringing these objects of ubiquity to the fore. Many of the imagery and mediums he uses escapes our gaze, because in their familiarity, we wholly consume them. Because they are often ignored or simply unseen, there is a loss of information, a fading image. Ghostly impressions that make up the world we know, yet they never quite come to mind when we are trying to paint a picture from our thoughts.
Exhibition essay by Carina Santos
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FOST Gallery is proud to present Luis Antonio Santos’ first solo exhibition in Singapore, The Flowers Are Blooming Again But They Have No Scent.
The paradoxical title of the exhibition is a quote from the 1970 Soviet science-fiction film The Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, a cerebral investigation into the journey of self-discovery that explores the dimensions of consciousness. Die-hard fans of the film are known to remember it differently each time they watch it. This shifting of perspectives resonates in Santos’ works, with his use of unusual materials and laborious processes, our first assumptions of what a work of his might be about is turned on its head the more we look at it. For example, Untitled (Structures), the diptych of a painting of a distorted galvanized iron sheet, is placed next to the actual sheet. They seem identical but they are not, and in fact, the painting can never be an identical reproduction. Similarly with his monochromatic paintings of covers (Void I and II) used to protect existing artworks, these covers are elevated to a subject matter, themselves worthy of painting, and which, presumably will need their own protective covers, which in turn inspire another painting.
It is a variation of the Droste effect, where a picture recursively appearing within (though in this case, over) itself, in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. His unique screen-printing process of these iron sheets again play to our assumption that these are simple and direct facsimiles of the objects, where in fact it is more complex to produce.
In addition, Santos plays with notions of invisibility, by bringing these objects of ubiquity to the fore. Many of the imagery and mediums he uses escapes our gaze, because in their familiarity, we wholly consume them. Because they are often ignored or simply unseen, there is a loss of information, a fading image. Ghostly impressions that make up the world we know, yet they never quite come to mind when we are trying to paint a picture from our thoughts.
Exhibition essay by Carina Santos
