The references I use for this work are based on the graffiti and tagging I see on my daily commute around Santiago. The photographed walls that serve as models for the artworks are found mainly in Av. Departamental (San Joaquín), Gran Avenida (La Cisterna), and nearby streets. I reinterpret the registers of these walls using different digital filters, synthesising them and transforming them into "pixelated" models, which I then materially transfer to small tesserae - or square modules - handmade from synthetic and natural waxes pigmented with oil paint. The material used, wax, and its modular form playfully mimic mosaics of stone or small ceramic tiles. This allusion to historical decorative traditions contrasts with the motifs depicted in the work, which are commonly associated with residual and urban visual pollution.
In addition to the graffiti variants (tags, icons, bubble letters, scribbles and characters) that graphically saturate the walls, the layers contained in their surface are visually incorporated: reliefs, textures, accidents, peelings and posters, among others. Through the mosaic filter, the referenced materiality is synthesised and "cleansed" by integrating these layers into an indeterminate and diffuse, almost abstract whole. This re-signification can suggest how the immense saturation of graffiti is already a reality integrated into perception and therefore almost unnoticed.
Today's graffiti, in contrast to the satire and criticism of its origins in ancient Roman culture - where messages, slogans, names, symbols and insults were already inscribed on public walls - while retaining a spirit of rebellion and counter-culture, tends to adopt the forms and iconographies of mass and pop culture, of the colourful and childish. The emphasis is on the form and style of writing "names" (block letters, bubble letters, model pastels, tags), a custom inherited from the past and which had a territorial and proprietary purpose.
The parodic imitation of ceramic pieces and stone mosaics also refers to the custom of different cultures to decorate floors and walls, both in the home and in public spaces, with protective motifs and figures, as in Pompeii or Babylon. This magical belief in placing fetishes on the walls and structures of houses to ward off evil draws my attention and raises the question of how these spaces are currently used, both materially and symbolically.
One connotation that coloured wax has as a signifier is the association of this material with the crayons used in childhood, facilitating expression and experimentation through broad strokes. This reference to the material, although it may establish a simile between children's colourful drawings and scribbles and graffiti, in particular tags and throw-ups, is also established as a counterpoint because, in contrast to the spontaneity of children's strokes, in graffiti, there is control over the gesture and the execution of the line, as well as a deliberate attempt to give letters and texts their autonomy and style, to the point of becoming completely illegible and cryptic in some cases.
Finally, I link these images painted in the city to my general interest in degraded and precarious images, which I have been working with through painting and whose referents are the residual images generated by the medium and digital platforms: uneven and low-resolution images. These interest me because, in addition to the formal interest of translating them into painting, they form a diffuse and indeterminate imaginary in a state of "dematerialisation" (Steyerl, 2009), inhabiting the border between the figurative and the abstract.
Marcela Serra, artist.
September 2023.
Steyerl, H. (2009). In Defense of the Poor Image. e-flux Journal, Issue #10.
