Biography
Federico Duret was born in Rosario, 1977.
He is licensed in Fine Arts with specialization in painting, also graduated from the National University of Rosario. He developed studies with Graciela Sacco and Miguel Ballestereos. He studied photography, music and digital design. He took part of several group exhibitions. Among the individual showings he has been invited to the one at the Provincial Museum Rosa Galisteo de Rodriguez specially stands out, also the one at “L’estruch” space of the Sabadell Museum in Barcelona. In 2006 he was awarded with the Young Talent Grand Prize of the nation wide painting and digital awards of the UADE. In 2005 he obtained the Accésit Prize at the Certamen Iberoamericano de Pintura, Argentine Airlines, in 2003 he was awarded with the annual scholarship of the Cultural Affairs of the Providence of Santa Fe. In 2007 he took part of an artistic residence at the “La Nau” Centre of Art, Sabadell, Barcelona. He was chosen to join the “Dream for Better lives” project of the Yellow House Foundation, Barcelona, also the “Arte Joven” in 2008.
Nowadays he lives and works as a graphic and multimedia designer in Barcelona, Spain.
Vision of art
1. Choose a work that represents you, describe it in relation to its format and materiality, its relation with time and space, its style and theme; detail its production process.
I do feel identified with any of my works because of the way the diverse senses that I refer to articulate in between them. My works are not usually self-referential. They seek for the spectators’ will and motivation, a turn on their critical aspect and the act of imaging. It is also a critic to contemporary subjects such as the psychological features of individuals and their relation ship with intimate spaces, daily life, art and consume. It would seem like when seeing below the veil of the almost publicitary appearance of images -that play like a lure-, a dark and obscure landscape appears; like those pleasant paints or those stormy pleasures that flirt with the darkest side of our being.
I usually work on a very methodic way. I have a gallery of images taken from graphic medias, internet and pictures that I’ve taken. I start putting together the images almost intuitively, without thinking too much, doing a first draft in a digital format, the computer then makes this process faster and also more spontaneous, then I go to the chosen media and stamp, most of the cases with oil.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
I think the format is almost too traditional to suggest any other alternative way to approach it. It works within a whole but also individually. I’m not interest on giving previous information to the audience by the time they stand up in front of the work; neither expect them to be updated with any kind of speech that the work does not transmit on its own. Art must not stay within a crystal bubble and a wider audience should enjoy it. Since it is a hand craft image, it possess a certain sensitivity linked to inner issues of the human being; a kind of configuration of senses that cannot be translated into words unless it is a metaphor.
3. In reference to your work and your position in the national and international art fields, what tradition do you recognize yourself in? Who are your contemporary referents? What artists of previous generations are of interest to you?
My contemporary references are not Fine Art artists, but people who have a very particular vision on the issues they talk about and the way the express it. What specially influences me is daily knowledge and wisdom, the people I relate to and my cultural heritage. Talking about Argentinian art I feel especially interested into the neo configuration and the picture pop art.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
There are many, it comes to my mind the Berni exhibition at the National Museum of Buenos Aires. I was shocked by the diversity of languages that were used and the quality, originality and coherence that turn him into and artists that is impossible to categorize within any style or trend.
