Alexei Gartinski

I was born in 1962 in Moscow, Russia. For many years and I have lived and worked in Geneva, Switzerland; about 12 years ago – for family reasons – I moved to Amman, Jordan.

My art is based on a simple principle: “Nothing is what it looks like”. So, I look at the photos, pictures, images, usually from magazines and newspapers, I turn them around, often upside down, and then I start seeing eyes, faces, new images, that were not their before... Then I cut the pictures into pieces, and put these pieces together, creating a completely new image. There is usually no plan in my work: I go with the material to where it takes me. And I am never disappointed...

I don’t create out of nothing. I take something that has already existed, then turn it around and play with it. I’ve been doing that since I was a child. In the process I discovered that everything could be something else. So now, when I look around, I can see a lot of things I could never see before.

What you see here has been mainly created in 2001-2003. It was a difficult time, full of uncertainties, frustrations and disappointments, so you could probably feel some of it in my work.

I don't do collages anymore. There will be no more works like that. Ever. That series, that i...