Breaking Point Painting

Introduction by Pafo Gallieri When looking at Kevin’s latest visual productions, one might feel like they are staring into a world of electronic impulses, pixels and meshes. Those elements, now far from the digital world where they belong, have been reshaped back into the traditional medium of Painting, like in some sort of anachronistic game. This process is the result of the time that the artist had spent wandering in the virtual world. Having studied Painting in the early Eighties and then embarking on a studio Painting practice into the early Nineties, he started working with 3D software whilst creating both physical and digital art eventually focussing on the latter. He has produced works ranging from video art to most recently NFT’s. It was only a couple of years ago that Kevin felt the need to return to Painting. He is now operating like software but instead of the usual hardware is supported by thick layers of oils and acrylics, brushes, paper and canvas. In this universe of ‘hand painted CGI’ we come face to face with a final boss from a 90’s arcade game. Unnervingly he is staring with all his thirty eyes just moments before the fight kicks in, or we could get lost in a surreal desert from the latest VR headset. These elements are transfigured through his ‘Bad Painter’ treatment and there is often an unsettling feeling in this peculiar bit-fauve style. Overall, the techno-pop component that comes through these works is due to the influence of video games and probably before that comics had a hand in informing his aesthetic. On the other hand, the increasing degrees of abstraction often tend to almost destroy the representation and unveil the author’s intention of criticizing the digital world, a place in which he felt to some degree caged. In this sense, these works ultimately could be seen as an attempt to reclaim reality through Painting and can be read as a declaration of creative freedom.