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Roberto Fonfría lives in Miami, Fl
He was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1969 Solo Exhibitions: Oneironaut The Hue Gallery, Miami Fl, Feb-May 2017 IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S THEM Pinecrest Gardens, Miami Fl; October 2016 PLEASE BE QUIET THANK YOU Studio Wynwood, Miami Fl; December 2013 No llore en Público Wynwood 201 Art, Miami Fl; November 2010 |
Group Exhibitions:
We Loved Them All Online Exhibition curated by THE ART DESIGN PROJECT 2020 Imperfect Aesthetic SOHO Beach House, Miami Fl, August-October 2017 ART MIAMI The Hue Gallery Booth, Miami Fl, February 2016 ART ASPEN The Hue Gallery Booth, Aspen, CO; August 2016 ALTA TEMPERATURA McLoughling Gallery, San Francisco CA, July 2012 BURST Miami Fl, November 2011 Mire a los ojos Wine Bistro, Miami Fl; August 2010 Salón "El Rostro en el Arte" Ateneo del Hatillo, Caracas 2007 "Mercado de Diseño V" Terraza del Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas 2006 Oxígeno 2.0 Ars, Caracas 2004 Oxígeno 1.0 Ars, Caracas 2003 "Expoarepa" Círculo de Creativos de Venezuela Galería Espacios Arte, Trasnocho Cultural, Caracas 2003 www.robertofonfria.com Contact: [email protected] |
About my work:
I create stories through the random mix of found images, photographs, drawings and words. I combine these elements and build layers and textures using acrylics, common objects and collage. I like to explore human behaviour and social rules with a critic eye and humor, touching on personal themes such as dreams, fears and memories.
The images I use come from old magazines, advertising and photo albums I collect at thrift stores. I extract them from their natural context and reconstruct them adding references to popular culture as well as common phrases and insights that come from my venezuelan childhood. I like using old images, like the ones in the 1970’s magazines I used to see as a kid. The creative process starts by searching and collecting the printed material. I scan these images and digitally manipulate them in the computer. Then I transfer them using hands-on methods, painting, drawing and writing on top of them; mixing media and techniques; in a way bringing the process back into a very “analog” more spontaneous and industrious labor.
Textures become an important part of the work, by using surfaces such as pegboards, wood and cardboard, as well as paper scraps, old tickets, receipts, I reference materials usually found out of the art world and more closely related to everyday street life. In this way, my work evokes pop art’s fascination with the common object and seeks to construct new meanings and stories in wich there's usually something hidden. Words that appear at second sight, like timely whispers, to reward the careful spectator with a smile. The work portrays an instant, and triggers the mind to complete what came before and imagine what may come next.
I create stories through the random mix of found images, photographs, drawings and words. I combine these elements and build layers and textures using acrylics, common objects and collage. I like to explore human behaviour and social rules with a critic eye and humor, touching on personal themes such as dreams, fears and memories.
The images I use come from old magazines, advertising and photo albums I collect at thrift stores. I extract them from their natural context and reconstruct them adding references to popular culture as well as common phrases and insights that come from my venezuelan childhood. I like using old images, like the ones in the 1970’s magazines I used to see as a kid. The creative process starts by searching and collecting the printed material. I scan these images and digitally manipulate them in the computer. Then I transfer them using hands-on methods, painting, drawing and writing on top of them; mixing media and techniques; in a way bringing the process back into a very “analog” more spontaneous and industrious labor.
Textures become an important part of the work, by using surfaces such as pegboards, wood and cardboard, as well as paper scraps, old tickets, receipts, I reference materials usually found out of the art world and more closely related to everyday street life. In this way, my work evokes pop art’s fascination with the common object and seeks to construct new meanings and stories in wich there's usually something hidden. Words that appear at second sight, like timely whispers, to reward the careful spectator with a smile. The work portrays an instant, and triggers the mind to complete what came before and imagine what may come next.
Oneironaut
Exhibition text by Amalia Caputo
A collage lives thanks to the curious hands that choose specific pieces of paper, card stock, string, photographs and scraps, and rework them onto a surface to construct a different meaning, a novel identity, a fresh story. Such is the case with the recent body of work by Miami-based artist Roberto Fonfría (Caracas, 1969) in his first solo exhibition at The Hue. Bridging disciplines as wide-ranging as photographic transfers to drawing and writing, Fonfría examines questions of consciousness, identity, happiness, humor, boredom, masculinity, money, and aging, exposing the centrality of time that pertain to each piece.
The exhibition’s title, Oneironaut, alludes to those who travel through dreams, in this case through the characters created by Fonfría, triggered from unknown portraits and by means of different visual strategies that are mostly derived from vintage sources and his personal collection of diverse objects. Fonfría enhances the content of the work by revealing through each piece an individual constructed psychological profile.
Fonfría explores as well, social constructs, self-conscious thoughts and personal messages by incorporating phrases and numbers that resonate with the viewer. Every collage/drawing builds a fictional story that departs from an unknown character reconstructed by the artist, depicting layers of colors and materials sandwiched between the transparent surfaces of the acetate photos, and the background. His practice embraces a broad range of materials, from vintage magazines to enlarged photographs transferred onto acetates, to parking tickets and old notebook scraps, all parts glued or sewn together and sprinkled with phrases that provide insights into his depictions, a visual echo chamber of the viewer’s thoughts, that direct the viewer’s attention in the most humanized of terms towards art, a stream of thought.
Through the use of humor and observations on self-awareness, among other mechanisms, he is able to propose an intimate dialogue with the viewer while at the same time allowing the eye to wander to the meaningful minutiae that accompanies each portrait: numbers, words, thoughts and sewn pieces that create a wistful yearning for a bygone era. The artist himself remains subtly present in these collages through the use of period materials that recall the Venezuela of his youth, he waxes nostalgic about a society with the promise of a grandiose future, an open and vibrant country that has, sadly, fallen into a state of disgraceful decadence, far from the high expectations of the post- war years.
With this body of work, Fonfría establishes a direct conduit for communicating with the viewer, a stream of conversation capable of shifting from the literal to the metaphorical, with phrases that work both as mirrors that reflect the spectator’s own thoughts, based on popular beliefs along with a sense of self-scrutiny that becomes deeply introspective.
These collages are appealing regardless of the number of times we look at them, as they seem to always contain new elements for dialogue with us, ensnaring us in our own thoughts, allowing for a constant, intimate narrative that continues to grow between each piece and the viewer. While the holistic view of the work presents the immediate motif of a portrait, at close range a myriad of bits and pieces complete a puzzle that encompasses the whole fiction, comprising the foundation on which each character is built.
We sense that Fonfría’s work reflects upon how the dynamic conditions of a recent past have evolved into our present, with mediations on exile, humor, loss and loneliness. Through his work, the artist has juxtaposed a personal intimate narrative with a broader cultural history, retelling forgotten stories, while celebrating in the complexity of each portrayed imaginary character, the subjectivity of the passage of time, the construction of an emotional memory and our figurative sense of self.
Amalia Caputo is a photo based artist, art historian and occasional curator based in Miami.
