Carlos Fentanes

Art for me is a quest about questioning my environment: my culture and within it, Religion, Spirituality, Politics, Beauty… I am who I am because of my culture, I mean, all this baggage that I carry from my ancestors, my homeland, my friends and family… But why is so important? Can I avoid it? Is it good?

I am working right now in a small piece called “Flag (After Jasper Johns and IKEA)” and that can explain what I am referring with this. Flag as a symbol if identity that has been thought to me from my parents, my school, the political system. Do I have to accept it? What really means a flag?

And then se second part of the title: after Jasper Johns and IKEA. Jasper Johns made a series of paintings about the USA Flag; it is almost his most distinctive work, again, questioning about his identity and the tradition of Art and painting in the USA against European formulas.

But then, I included IKEA, at the end my flag is a kitchen cloth from IKEA, so my identity and my work as artist should include all this stuff: my religion, my country, my shopping list, my everyday life. I can’t avoid it but I can question it to find who really I am.

View this post on Instagram

WIP Starting this week and still working on my flag, my concept of identity symbol, of belonging but contemporary. What is my home? Where is it in this globalized world? What it means? Flag (after Jasper Johns and IKEA) #flag #jasperjohns #ikea #contemporaryartist #contemporarydrawing #graphitedrawing #charcoaldrawing #hyperrealism #photorealism #canadianart #canadianartist #torontoartist #toronto #torontoart #canada🇨🇦

A post shared by Carlos Fentanes (@carlosfentanes) on Aug 10, 2020 at 4:06am PDT