Relying on intense modular repetition and extensive multi-frame staging to map out a structural cultural narrative, the artwork masterfully tracks a complex rhythm of human behavior rules and modern anxiety. The horizontal layout anchors an expansive gallery perspective tracking ten synchronized white-framed sheets, using strategic studio watercolor accents and office-tape censorship motifs to turn individual black and white thrift-store portrait segments into an elegant topographic scenery of pure spatial balance and quiet luxury.
The images come from old magazines, advertising and photo albums collected at thrift stores creating a mixed media artwork. By extracting them from their natural context, he reconstructs them by adding references to popular culture as well as common phrases and insights that come from his Venezuelan childhood.
Fonfria's work explores human behavior and social rules with a critical eye and humor, touching on personal themes such as dreams, fears, and memories. The images come from old magazines, advertising, and photo albums collected at thrift stores. By extracting them from their natural context, he reconstructs them by adding references to popular culture as well as common phrases and insights that come from his Venezuelan childhood.
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Conceptual Portrait Art Installation - Set of 10. From Close Before Striking
Set of 10 artworks, 2014
From The Series Close Before Striking series
Collage, watercolor, and graphite.
Overall size:
Image size: 40 H x 80 W in.
Frame size: 48 H x 100 W x 1 D in.
Individual size:
Image size: 20 H x 16 W in.
Frame size: 24 H x 20 W x 1 D in.
UniqueMixed Media on %100 Cotton.
Mounted on a white frame
Roberto Fonfría (1969) born in Caracas, Venezuela, examines questions of consciousness, identity, happiness, humor, boredom, masculinity, money and aging, exposing the centrality of time that belongs to each piece. His collages live on thanks to his curious hands that choose specific pieces of paper, cardboard, thread, photographs and clippings, and are reworked on a surface to construct a different meaning, a new identity, a new narrative. Uniting disciplines as broad as photographic transfers with drawing and writing. His method of creation consists of using images from old magazines, advertisements and photo albums, modifying them and adding references to popular culture, common phrases and reflections from his childhood in Venezuela. Finally he makes “analogical” modifications using practical methods, painting, drawing and writing.
