Mr Ydáñez’s work represents another extension of the poetics on the body that have been so influentual over the past years in the international scene. In his case… around painting – as it is in other different cases from Luc Tuysmans to Marlene Dumas – that different questions, that seem to interest critics and artists, are formulated about identity or human nature. The fact that a painted portrait is an instrument of choice has made it so that he be associated with, above all a tradition that includes Edward Munch and Francis Bacon, rather than the poetics that we are referring to now.
Santiago Ydáñez definitely offers us an extensive repertoire of screams and complaints which couldn’t seem any more Expressionist. Yet, although he presents us with extreme expressions of his own face or of other people’s faces, he does so through analysis , method, serializing, and chromatic restraint. He purposefully never lets himself be swayed by subjectivity or improvisation.
“The blending of different spiritualities, together with different bestialities can be seen as a leitmotiv in my work. I unite religious iconographies and nature, mainly fauna, motives. In this way human faces with void, mystic and deep romantic presence, share the same space with scenes taken from Natural history Museum. Sacred Art, the romanticism and the taxidermist mastery, salute each other.” Santiago Ydáñez (2009).
He’s currently exhibiting at the Berlin gallery Invaliden1 until June 5th…. you know what to do right?
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