My work is polysemantic, it plays out the abstract nature of figuration and figurative components of abstraction. Reimagining discarded objects like car hoods, repurposing functional objects like chalkboards or roadsigns is a passion of mine. It began as a boy in Mexico seeing the wonderful things made from trash; a plane from a coke can, or masks made from coffee sacks. It is magical to see a discard given a new and surprising life as something else. The interdisciplinary model is what I resonate with the most. My paintings have developed into experiments in repurposing and often times demand I learn or invent new processes to deal with the material conditions of the objects I choose to use. My recent work finds connections between languages both visual and meaning (syntax). For instance “Active” and “Activo” mean the same thing in English and Spanish and look very similar. Some words mean different things in distinct languages, “Tirar” in Spanish means to throw and in Italian means to pull. This peculiarity got me interested in producing cognate images. My work varies stylistically, materially and in subject matter. Looking at my work as a grouping of symbols, the connection becomes more apparent. The differences then become dialects of the same visual language.

Carlos de Villasante