BIO
Jaén, Spain, 1969Santiago Ydañez
Paint is an opaque mirror in which reality is reflected by the hand and the gize of the painter. Conceived in this way, the painting in a tool becomes ductile, malleable, flexible and against reality, much more in this contemporary reality where the images live in complete harmony, while their contents or solemnize demystify. Established reflecting the promiscuity of pictures with my reality coexist in Western, post-modern, neo-baroque, iconographic and iconoclastic, is what I try to do the painting Santiago Ydañez. Therefore, if refractory status allows the luxury of mixing catholic virgins with topless nordic tourists, burnt forest with snow-capped mountains, stuffed animals with hunting dogs, costume festivities with sculptures of saints, or exotic animals loaded with ugliness and rarity with the strange beauty of insects, birds and shellfish ... all images that lives in a world of dreams, nightmares and shocking flashes
INTERVIEW
How would you define the project that you undertook for TruckArtProject?
Well, it was an interesting challenge. Every day you’re painting a pair of 3x6’s outdoors with an audience.
In your case, how do the two sides of the truck work together?
In my case I used two sides of the same coin, one is calm and one is murkier.
What are the challenges of the project for you?
The challenges are the size, the materials, and being live. Also the heat dried the paint and made it very difficult to store it.
How does this project fit into your trajectory and your discourse?
It’s a projection of a project I presented at Arte Santander, which was taken from my work relating to the idea of race.
Some artists admit that they came in with a pre-existing idea that they had to modify, or that grew in other directions when faced with a canvas like this one. Was that the case for you?
In my case everything went smoothly.
How did you approach the reception of a work like this, in which the spectator comes across it instead of seeking it out, and which doesn’t “circulate” through the usual art channels?
The surprise factor is always fun and exciting.
What about the fleeting nature with which it’s received?
An added bonus, like a flash of lightning.
How did you approach the scale? Were you used to it?
Yes, that scale is natural in my work.
What does this type of project offer you, and what do you think you bring to the project?
I think it was a fun, refreshing and enriching challenge. I don’t usually do work on such popular canvases or spaces.
Why is a project like TruckArtProject interesting?
By the visibility that gives to the work of the artists. This initiative reaches an audience that otherwise would not see this kind of works.
I bring a certain dramatic density to the project and the project offers me simplicity. It’s interesting because of how immediate and intimate it can be for everyone.
Javier Díaz-Guardiola