Painter & Art Historian (Modern & Contemporary)
aurbina8@miners.utep.edu
CONTACT
Artist Statement
I view painting as a tool for meditation on the ephemerality of life. Each painting explores themes of memory, personal identity, and the fleetingness of the human experience.
The figures I paint vary from the cultural to personal. Mostly interested in the past, particularly images that hold a documental quality, I revisit and further expand on the original references. My paintings are not portraits, but rather observations; people captured in moments that seem unaware of the viewer’s gaze, creating a subtle sense of voyeurism.
The research process behind each painting has become imperative to my work. Inspired by my journaling habit, every painting begins with a memory, an emotion, or a certain situation that I deem important enough to document within a letter. I then paste the letter onto the canvas, often overlapping it with additional canvas and images cut out from newspapers to create a minimalistic collage. Such use of material is meant to distort time and space, making each scene I portray vaguely familiar. I further evoke the unreliability of memory through the language of the medium. Visible brushstrokes and drippings caused by heavily diluted paint create a sense of intimacy and domesticity, while simultaneously emphasizing the trajectory of the paintbrush.
In observing the past and my everyday life, my paintings merge the peculiarities of my inner reality with the external reality, merging mundane perceptions and memories into conversations with contemporary life. I aim to evoke a sense of familiarity, creating an opportunity for empathy through the language of painting.