Luis Gomez de Teran, painter from Caracas, Venezuela. Photo © L. G. de Teran
1.Tell us what you do and your beginnings.
I find it very hard to label myself, I should say I’m an artist, but it’s not my favourite word to introduce myself. I’m mostly a painter, working both in the public area and for galleries, museums and private projects, but in the last few years I’m also approaching installations and some sculpting techniques to overcome the flatness of pictorial language.
What I actually do is create images in order to tell stories, which stand in an undefined position between personal experiences, thoughts or emotions, and things that happen around me that are beyond my control. In my life I’ve often found myself surrounded by pretty extreme people and situations, and even if nowadays I slowed down, that environment is still a big source of inspiration for stories that I consider important to be told.
I try to be as honest as I can in my work, and one of its most recurrent features is the presence of an amount of sufference, my artworks often refelct the way I face it, the way I try to accept its unavoidabilty, and how to heal from it or at least live with it. All the forms of art that touch me deeply always feature moments of pain, and through art I understood that it’s okay not to feel okay all the time.
