Cropped abstraction
From Berlin, this Chilean artist joins Collectio with some of his latest works that, he says, are an evolution of his career.
Whether it is due to his background as a graphic designer or his past as a street artist, Pablo Benzo uses colour as his main tool. He dismantles plants, furniture and other objects and reassembles them in impossible compositions, uniting them through chosen tones and a skillful brush.
The works exhibited at Collectio continue this exploration, but with new techniques. Until now he had concentrated on painting, but Benzo has now turned to collage.
He says he was inspired by Matisse's cut-outs . He uses papers selected according to colour, and if he can't find the right shade, he paints it himself. He joins and separates them until they make sense to him.
“It’s like making sketches for a painting,” he explains. “I go through moments of greater anxiety, when I want to do more spontaneous things, and that can’t be achieved with oil. With collage, other forms emerge; it’s like drawing with the other hand,” he says. He clarifies that there are no advantages between painting and collage, but rather they complement each other. “Collage, just because it’s faster, doesn’t have less value. It’s an edge of the previous work, and in this case, a more evolved edge.”
He prefers not to talk about what he wanted to convey, since, in his opinion, putting that intention into words will only confuse the viewer. “Each person can feel different things when seeing these works. It is very personal, and it could coincide with what I wanted to convey, but perhaps not, and that is the beauty of it. The experience of seeing one of these paintings can be completely different depending on the moment that a person is going through,” he explains.
Regarding his participation in Collectio, he says that he decided to join because he believes in the project. “I have seen many people who have tried to do this. At first I participated and then I stopped, because they became a catalogue of names, something not very special. But with Collectio it is different, because the artists are limited, chosen for reasons. Also, I have to say that I felt the love put into the project, and the desire to do things well,” he adds.
Currently, Collectio has six works by Pablo Benzo. For the artist, they are a synthesis of all the images he has liked in his life and that he has collected in his head. “Well, I think it is logical… if I had lived underwater these collages would be very different.”
Text by Ana Yarur
