Madrid-based artist, Manuel Fernández deals in psychedelics and pastels and his latest exhibition, Abstract Transfer Protocol is now showing at the Guy Hepner Gallery in New York, in association with The Tax Collection. And the cryptic name? Well, it's all about the process of upload and download, and he's transferred the mesmerizing technicolor glitches from cyberspace onto canvas.
What is your first artistic memory? The first work of art that was impressed into my memory was a gorgeous copy of "Saint Jerome in penitence" by Jose de Ribera in the Catholic school - l where I was studying growing up as a child. It was a prolific piece for me, as it ingrained into me the idea of perceived "beauty" and sparked a lifelong interest in the arts as a whole.
How would you sum up your aesthetic? The aesthetic of BG Paintings (Broken Gradients Paintings) began in 2011 at the intersection of art , pop culture and the Internet. The palette is inspired by the spectrum of color available on computer devices/the handheld devices that we find ourselves using daily. The composition represents the midway between the glitch process and abstract expressionism - and the production with UV inks on canvas link the works to the classic format of art history - essentially blurring the boundaries between computer graphics and painting, between virtual and real. It's a concept I am heavily interested in, as I have always found the process of disseminating information to be fascinating - and something I wanted to understand and represent in my own visual way.
What's in the name of the show? The exhibition title "Abstract Transfer Protocol" is derived from FTP (File Transfer Protocol) which is a process that allows uploading and downloading files to an internet server. In the midst of this process, the data is essentially "glitched" when being transferred - which is what the images from this series represent as a whole, showing their seemingly perfect abstraction once it's transferred.
Tell us about the exhibition…In the same way that abstract expressionism used error and seemingly random inspirations as a starting point toward new meanings and aesthetic to the unknown - BG Paintings (Broken Gradients Paintings) emulates the glitch process, or visual error that is caused by the corruption of a digital file, but unlike this, the images are painted virtually, editing presets that are available in digital image software.
These images are in a state of transit, I have strived to capture them in an intermediate process between decomposition (to be transmitted over the network) and its recomposition once reaching the destination point - ending with these beautiful, seemingly "broken" gradients.
How did you start working with TAX? Tanner and Max were following my work through Instagram for the past year and decided to contact me to do the exhibition as the final show of their 2018 curatorial residency with Guy Hepner. We spent about a year going back and forth choosing works together and working on an overall theme / outline. Very excited to see it all put together in New York!
Who/what has had the biggest impact on your work? The collision between the history of art (until Contemporary Art), especially the history of painting and the new tools of digital production in the context of the Internet.
How your work evolved? At the beginning I worked on traditional abstract painting until I began to learn about digital computer tools - in a seemingly natural transition - I started to update these paintings with an aesthetic that came from the digital and Internet ecosystems that surround us everyday.
What's the best piece of advice that you've been given? I don't necessarily have a formal training in the arts, but I will take a sentence from Michael Craig-Martin I like a lot: "By far the most important characteristic for anyone wanting to be an artist is desire: the passionate, inexplicable desire to make art. This desire is more important than talent.
Abstract Transfer Protocol by Manuel Fernández at Guy Hepner Gallery, 520 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001, USA.