Untitled (feat. Cherish Waters)
September 2009
Oil on canvas
100 x 100cms
This painting initially emerged as a commissioned triptych for the living room. A negative comment about the technique used to paint the trees in the middle of the painting caused a creative block, and I abandoned the work for over five years. In September 2009, I decided to resume the painting, adapting it to be the first piece focused on the subject of masculinities, which was beginning to interest me at the time.
This painting specifically deals with my feelings of masculine inadequacy regarding women after the advent of Feminism. At the time, I was also interested in topics such as the absence of the father/teacher figure and the use of sex as a control mechanism. However, the clash between the masculine and the feminine seemed more present in my paintings, considering the series of portraits that began my artistic practice.
Over time, I began to understand the inherent problems of painting female figures, especially when done by a man. In particular, I recognized the issue of using female bodies already objectified by the media, as in the case of the model Cherish Waters, whom I used in this painting.
This work also marks an initial attempt to overcome the difficulty of illustrating fictional backgrounds. The flat and colorful backgrounds of the portrait series had been bothering me more than the challenge of dealing with these imaginary spaces. They added little to the painting and pulled my gaze like a void.
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