GUILLERMO ARANDA-MENA

From abstract thinking to abstract doing. Guillermo Aranda-Mena©2017

"Another technique artists have used to discover their own identities through an engagement with admired predecessors is that of combination: taking a number of different and well-known influences and combining them in ways that have never yet been tried. The style of Francis Bacon now appears obvious and complete, but the path to this achievement was based on a gradual blending, Bacon was deeply impressed by Vincent van Gogh, as his studies for a portrait of him attest." Alain de Botton and John Armstrong "Art as Therapy" Page 191. "How can anyone become a thinker if he does not spend at least a third of the day without passions, people and books?" Federico Nietzsche in de Botton "The Consolations of Philosophy" Page 219. "As Nietzsche's beloved Montaigne has explained in the final chapter of his Essays, the art of living lies in finding uses for our adversities: We must lear to suffer whatever we cannot avoid. Our life i...

U RBITAS refers to a collage of some of my favourite cities. If looking at the below traced image from top-right moving clockwise you could identify: Milano, Mantova, Venice, Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Manhattan, Guadalajara, México City, Zurich (centre left) and Melbourne (centre right). The collage was drawn and then painted over canvas (acrylic ) depicting a megalopolis of my ideal city.  ... conversations (versus) NATURA refers to trees that I recently observed and engaged with in locations such as St Kilda and Phillip Island, Australia; Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore. The selected three on canvas (oil-pens) is in Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia and it is observation into nature and reflective exercise to "detox" from city life . The result is inconclusive.... and that is an important aspect of it.  For the transition between UBITAS and NATURA I selected an image of a boutique shop I recently visited in Hong Kong. The work is organic yet set in the city with highest li...