CORONAVIRUS

A homage to the heroism of Health Workers worldwide

COVID

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“Art nourishes the soul – I feel connected when I am creating, it is my life force, it is my joie de vivre , every hour, every day—to (access) tap into the subconscious and bring surreal worlds to life.”

The COVID-19 virus is humanity’s newest foe, with the potential to prematurely end millions of lives. To control this new coronavirus, we need to understand it. Labs around the world are now working around the clock in a bid to know their enemy. Throughout history there are masterworks of tragedy and introspection, which delve into the deepest realms of paranoid human solitude—it is often during these extraordinary times that one becomes consumed with self-reflection and self-expression – with an obligation to create and give voice to your inner thoughts.

 

NEW VISION – A New World  

Pandemics are notorious for upending all of society. Artists are notorious for creating their art under the most perilous and inopportune circumstances. Throughout history, art has continued to be created and consumed during times of plague and global health crises. So art will be created now. Which begs the questions: What sort of art has been created during pandemics? And what purpose does art serve during them? In whatever form it takes, art will be created during plagues.

 

 

YGARTUA TRANSFORMS, DIVERTS AND RECONSTRUCTS CONVENTIONAL REALITY 

TO GIVE US A NEW AND UNIQUE VISION OF THE WORLD

 

 

 

 

The Dream – Often surrealism and fantasy art is explained by suggesting that the artist under a spell of hypnosis can then self induce these lucid dreams as a source of artistic inspiration.The debate surrounding the difficulty of transcribing a dream onto the canvas without the use of human interpretation is ongoing amongst Surrealist scholars and artists.

Either Ygartua is constantly in a dream-like state when he is awake, or he just has a vivid imagination that he can tap into at any time he chooses.

Ygartua has simplified the dream-like state, he says: 

“I do it while I am awake, that way, no problem recalling—I contemplate and try to imagine different situations, unique ideas, unusual creatures that could be working together with the virus, similar to that of the pilot fish that assist the sharks in their close relationship as the clean-up crew.  I like to reveal the darker side with a positive in the same painting.  It is like a chess game, the game of life.  The name of the game is to win, to survive.  The objective is to win, but the challenge is designing and then acting out a strategy to achieve that goal—as in life, you must constantly evaluate and change your playing strategy.  

 

 

 


I approach this series with the objective to win—the challenge is upon us, it will be faced and conquered

 

ARTIST STATEMENT
“Interpreting and painting my thoughts about the Coronavirus is a constant battle between good and evil and it is a 24hr day imagining even before I go to bed at night what different aspects the virus effects. I try to imagine the more positive approach to battling it; through our heroes we see how humans battle the virus, which made me think what other creatures create fear in every living being.  The shark comes to mind and I started to relate the virus to the dreaded shark of the ocean, (as they are both killing machines, out of control) which every creature is afraid of, except for the small pilot fish who work as caretakers. 

I was quite intrigued with the pilot fish who are the caregivers for the shark, as they service the shark by cleaning them and keeping all other annoyances away from them, enhancing their relationship whereby they become dependent upon each other – it reaches a point where they become so close, that even after a sharks death, they hang around still searching for their host. I was curious to visually study the up-close photos of this dreaded disease, it encouraged me to do some research on the visual presentation of these cells –it enticed me to look further, been drawn in on the mystery– I started to enter into a dream like state, applying my imagination to transform me onto the battlefield– it was like I was facing the war, the challenge to win-over and conquer this cruel beast.   This is where my idea of the paintings were invented.”

 

 

Dedicated to our Earth Angels—our doctors, nurses, all our warriors out there facing this enemy on a daily basis