João Print

A 3x4 photography is needed in official documents such as the Identity Card. It is as if this photo represents everything that this individual is. It attests and materializes the birth of the human being for humanity. I'm a graduated architect and also a self-taught visual artist. I started painting as if by chance and along the years I started to create characters always in a rigid pose, as if they were posing for a 3x4 photograph. The characters are like us: they have a name and personal characteristics that are expressed through color, traits and details inserted in each canvas. It is as if the painted image was the profile photograph of each character, creating a connection with the world today, where people get to know each other through the network and only reveal what is convenient. Illusory masks of an unreal life are created, where the worlds are mixed and self-deceived. My paintings are like my children. They were born through me and are part of my history and my passage through this world. So after being conceived they will be presented to society and will be judged. I like the reaction of people when they see my canvas; each person identifies more with a particular canvas, just as in personal relationships, we create an empathy with certain people and sometimes we also do not like them, for many and sometimes unexplainable reasons. The spectator feels the power of the strong features and delicacy exposed, creating immediately a relationship between the being and the canvas. In this way, the figures portray a mixture of feelings and masks used in our human nature, they portray life and personal relationships.