“The canvas is a system to give a meaning to the atmosphere…”
Sole figures amid mysteriously laden landscape characterize Federico Infante’s current exhibit at Hugo Galerie in SoHo, Manhattan. Subdued, mysterious and introspective, Federico initially approaches each painting with a week or week or two pre-reflection period. Then he enacts the expressive process of layering acrylic paint atop the canvas: “There’s a lot of layering, scratching, and there are no figurative elements in the paintings until I really start deciding on what the atmosphere or landscape will be.” Once he grasps onto ‘the expressive part’, he devises a visionary landscape derived from whatever he’s going through at the moment.
“My art is a reading of my subconscious that I don’t notice until later…”
Space and time hereby allow the fractals of design to arise and commandeer the artist to masterpiece. “When I got to a series that I’m invested in for 6 months, I decide they belong to a certain period in my life and can put a name to it.” Keenly aware and apprehensive of the paradox of control and its adverse affect on the artistic creation, Infante is aware that we ‘react from reality’.
“I can only develop as a painter if I recognize that I am not 100% in control…”
Being in full control hereby halts artistic creation, and it is this very sensitive topic the Chilean-born artist touches on.
Born and raised in Chile, it is this very geography of hope that further steers the fractyllic course of Infante’s abstract + figurative expressionism. “This geography of hope, or Chile feels like a metaphor for the personal process I’ve gone through.” Believing that where one is raised constitutes up to 80% of how one perceives life, Chile is the allegory of geography that captivates his being. “I grew up there, was raised and believe the way I perceive my life is 70-80% determined by how I was raised. It’s who I am and that’s what I try to do the most when I’m painting–is to express myself- truly.” Geometrically confounding like the fractal, Infante’s memoirs delve deep– hence his peeling away at superficial layers of paint. Concentrically zeroing in on what matters most to him at a given time, he creates fractals of space, solitude and rhyme.
Art review and photos by Farrah Sarafa
