Untitled II presents virtual experience painting where organic forms—green, pink elements—float in atmospheric background materializing screen browsing experience as physical painted still life. Etem explores fluid condition between virtual and real: digital environment navigation (whether Google Maps scrolling or museum feed viewing) becoming source for traditional painting medium, creating meeting place between bits and atoms. The work's ambiguous forms appear simultaneously natural (bodily, biological) and digital (flat color, screenshot aesthetic)—this uncertainty questions how we resignify narratives from files when daily experience increasingly occurs through screens. Untitled II demonstrates appropriation of net content: virtual browsing transformed into physical painting, screen time becoming artistic medium rather than mere consumption activity. The still life materializes contemporary existence where digital and physical coexist fluidly—painted forms suggesting pixels made tangible, atmospheric background evoking screen glow, composition functioning as visual question about territories diluted by technologies where virtual experiences demand physical artistic expression.
In this project, exploring the fluid condition between the virtual and real world, the artist seek to materialize my experiences in digital environments - whether browsing through Google Maps or in the feed of an art museum - generating images as a meeting place between the world of atoms and that of bits*
Virtual experience painting materializing screen browsing—organic forms as meeting place between digital and physical medium. Untitled II from Medium screen time by Rodrigo Etem. Available at The Art Design Project, Miami Beach.
Virtual Experience Painting – Untitled II, 2024 by Rodrigo Etem
Untitled II, 2024
From the Medium - Screen Time series
Mixed Media (oil, giclee print) on canvas
Dimensions: 52 H x 41.5 W x 3 D cm.
Marupá wood Framed
Rodrigo Etem was born in 1977 in Mendoza, Argentina, he studied Administration at the Universidad del Aconcagua. He attended workshops with Fabiana Barreda, Esteban Álvarez, Ananké Asseff, Eugenio Echeverría (Spain). He received grants from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Fondo Argentino de Desarrollo Cultural, Fondo Provincial de Cultura, Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación. His work surreptitiously investigates and works on concepts that seek to disseminate questions about our daily experience. The artist held solo exhibitions such as: “Hasta encontrar otro amarillo” (Imagen Galería, Mendoza 2018), “Instrucciones para no hacer nada” (Espacio Rivadavia 645, Mendoza 2016), “Probable” (Casa Colmena, Mendoza 2016), “Ser Cosa” (Museo Pumapungo Cuenca, Ecuador 2015), “Ser Cosa” (Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo, Guayaquil. Ecuador 2012).He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions. Highlights: “La marca original” (CCK, Buenos Aires 2019), “Poéticas Políticas” (Parque de la Memoria, Buenos Aires 2016), “Dura lex sed lex” (Bienal Sur. Centro Cultural Parque de España, Rosario)
