Konstantina
Date: 2007
Technique: Siliconised photography under methacrylate
Dimensions: 165 x 125 cm
Edition: 3/5
Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma
Reg. no.: 622
Not on display
Konstantina, a work from 2007, is the portrait of a young Rumanian woman living in the suburbs of Madrid and belonging to the thematic group dedicated to the Roma ethnic group. In this category of photographs, the contrast of the face set on a dark, uniform background is accentuated, in what is a premeditated move towards the pictorial treatment of the Baroque artists, in particular the tenebrism of the Spanish painter José de Ribera. The intensity of the contrast of light and shadows is proportional to the increase in dramatic quality in his subject. Konstantina thus becomes a psychologically-charged pictorial image, approaching the human soul, a forceful face which, devoid of compassion, transmits the harshness of a set of life circumstances.
E.B.
A resident in Spain since 1988, after having studied economics, he has been professionally devoting himself to photography since 1999. The central core of his work consists in large-scale portraits, mostly on black backgrounds, which reference the classicism of seventeenth-century naturalistic painters, sometimes with certain notes of religious imagery. His series include anonymous solitary characters far removed from stereotypical beauty who belong to marginal or minority groups, such as gypsies, the Japanese mafia and immigrants, etc. His works are mostly divided up into thematic groups, many of them dedicated to the underprivileged. However, his characters are not represented because they belong to a specific group, rather his choice corresponds to certain physical characteristics and a capacity for psychological transmission and transcending icons. E.B.
