A visit to Carlos Diaz studio
How would you define your work?
I would place it within contemporary realism. Yet, in my case, even if I capture reality as I see it, I always do so in order to build my own reality. In a way, my goal is to use plasticity and pictorial techniques to transform the reality surrounding me with the intention of conveying emotion, which in my mind is the ultimate goal of art.
Could you tell us about your creative process?
Even if everything can be painted, I am not interested in everything. I increasingly focus on concepts such as transience, impermanence, simplicity or ordinariness, and I found them in all these things that usually pass unnoticed: a puddle, a sheet on the line or a tree branch. I have always believed that it is the creative process that truly enriches me: I paint different paintings at once in order to rest my look between one and the other and so that the “construction” of the paintings is optimal.
How has your work evolved along the years?
I’d rather believe in a gradual evolution, one that is exponential throughout the years, than in one based on forced change. I used to look more to the sky and now I look more to the ground, I used to focus on a realist conception whereas now I’m approaching abstraction, I hardly ever textured my paintings and now I do…