Fantastic Creatures. Art Academy in Barcelona
Drawing and Painting Classes Works in focus
Agustí Roca
SIRENS. Acrylic on photo. 27×40 cm.
The starting point for SIRENS (1) is in a picture from a magazine (2), a spectacular picture of an underwater actress-dancer in a pool, moving weightless for a captivated public, although actually seems to be talking to her own reflection. From the original photograph, there have been made two enlarged copies on cardboard A3 (29,7×42 cm.) to be worked with acrylic. It was a matter of extracting the image from its documentary purpose to achieve a new meaning, and the painting could be a good way to get it.
The first version tries targeting towards the abstraction breaking up of the shape (3). The second, with a more minimalism simplification and a white and gray color restriction, partly recovers the original theme, but perhaps with a more disturbing effect (1).
This last composition has been digitized and manipulated with Photoshop for versions that may also serve as outlines for new recreations on the topic (4).
Agustí Roca
FEMALE FIGURE. Mixed media on wood. 50×48 cm.
FEMALE FIGURE (1) comes from a detail of SIRENS. It is a half-length figure basically defined by its contour, shaped by a series of wood-cuts and pebbles. This material is first set on a board (about 2 cm. thick), which has been then worked with acrylic lacqer (slightly diluted in varnish so that it is semitransparent) hinting previous blobs of paint that were on the glued wood fragments. A brief touch of acrylic paint stand for the eyes and the mouth.
