Sebastian Riffo Montenegro
Born in Chile in 1980, Sebastian Riffo Montenegro is a painter and digital artist. Create paintings that criticize the consumer society and socially constructed beliefs. Faceless figures in raincoats maneuver through deconstructed colored field backgrounds. Working with a selective palette and controlled lighting, Montenegro reveals the intention of his work through veils of lucid colors and mysterious shapes.
Could you tell us a little more about your background, and how did you begin creating art?
Since I was a child that I was interested in art, I did some art classes in my childhood, but it was not until 5 years ago that after working for 15 years in design and advertising in different marketing agencies, I decided to leave the stability of my job and dedicate myself exclusively to creating art. My experience in design and advertising have helped me develop my artistic style, which is precisely a criticism of the market for which I have worked for so many years.
What does your art aim to say to the viewers?
My works are mainly paintings but I also work in other formats such as photography, 3d modelling and street art. In my work, I show faceless figures in raincoats manoeuvring through deconstructed colored field backgrounds. I work with a selective palette and controlled lighting to create veils of lucid colors and mysterious shapes. In my work, absence is a common idea, which I use to present a clear critique of current social customs such as religion, fashion, consumerism, the excessive desire for success and power. Beliefs that envelop us, cover us, and eventually deform our ability and right to free will. The literalness of the line and the meticulousness of the technique seem to offer an indisputable realism where the images, textures and colors are presented sharp, frontal and concrete. However, it encourages the viewer to investigate the latent mystery that it offers, rethinking what is consumed in the first instance as a mere image. Through these pictorial allegories, the work provokes in the viewer the need to reveal the image, to discover and understand a new meaning; rethinking and awakening in the individual, free interpretation, typical of the human condition.
Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?
Each work is thought and developed first as a digital sketch, through a composition that mixes photographs, flat colors, graffiti and in some opportunities also 3d elements. which are designed by me in a 3d modelling software. After deciding how the work will be based on observing these digital voices for a couple of weeks, where I add or subtract elements until I am satisfied with the idea, I go on to reproduce the image on the canvas, using as fundamental material, acrylic paint, and aerosol.
What’s the essential element in your art?
For me, something that is fundamental in my work is the idea of absence, of the undisclosed, the hidden, to talk about how man is involved, covered with social concessions that make him not show his true human condition.
In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?
The artist is a creator of expressions, ideas and realities, who reflects on human events, making a call for the awakening of the viewer's conscience, giving him his emotions and his ideology. It seems to me more and more important that art has content, that it generates reflection in order not only to be a mere aesthetic instrument and to become an agent of change focused on helping to solve the most important problems of our time.
Website: www.riffomontenegro.com
