Opening Reception: Southern Idiom, Roberto Palo Del Mar

ARTIST STATEMENT

Since childhood, art has been the source of many joys for me. At a young age, I dreamt up visions that I brought to life through drawings. As a young adult, I discovered photography and found it to be a truer and sharper expression of my creativity. Living and traveling across Europe, South America, and North America has provided me immense opportunities and inspiration. Access to the world’s finest museums, diversified landscapes, and robust cultures refined my artistic style and built the portfolio used in my work. I developed the sculptured approach to my photography in 2015 after visiting “Rocinha”, a slum in Brazil. Standing at the top of a hill, overlooking seemingly endless small homes stacked upon one another, I found myself at a loss trying to capture the movement and dimension of the scene. The images I shot began to shift and crack before my eyes, the challenge fascinating me to create a path forward for “portraits in layers”. This led me to reconnect with my past in engineering and models, resulting in the effect before you today. Using metal and acrylic as a printed canvas, this innovative self-developed approach aims to create a depth and optical effect considered impossible to achieve through photography. My hope is you find this work as light-filled, alive, and abstract as it is intended.