Sin título [Untitled] (2023)
Sculpture. Wall piece. Mirror on cardboard and photography produced using artificial intelligence. Grey cardboard, manipulated mirror, printed on cotton paper.
22 x 27,5 x 3 cm
BilbaoArte Collection
Registration No. 2023.571.1
Tobalina works with subject matter where reflections, the body, image and its distortion are linked to psychological themes and his self-perception. He therefore works with screen printing on mirrors that he plays with to get part of the mirror to lose its reflectiveness and become opaque spaces. At other times, he does the opposite and selects the transparent part in the areas where there is only the reflection, so that the body – when one looks at one’s self – appears distorted, incomplete. He has experimented with different screen-printing techniques and types of ink, to see how they function when overlapped and displaced, to thus create a feeling of vertigo; and with discharge inks, which instead of adding ink to a fabric, they rather strip out, leaving the original colour of the fabric uncovered and allowing links to be generated with the idea of perception and origin.
Cyanotype also appears a great deal in his work due to his interest in how the emulsion makes what is invisible appear when exposed to light, creating a universe of ghostly shadows and lights that are captured on different types of surfaces. The analogue laboratory is going to allow him to delve further in this line. Sound is equality important in his work.
Juan Diego Tobalina (Lima, 1982) is a sound and visual artist who graduated from the Fine Arts Faculty at Barcelona University (2008), after studying for the first half of his degree at the Catholic University of Peru (2000-2002). He is a member of the independent art project Bisagra (bisagra.org), as well as of the Enhorabuena space in Madrid, along with belonging to the Lima Cooperative Collection. He currently lives in Madrid. His work has been exhibited in group and solo shows in several countries of Latin America and Europe. The recent ones include: Espacio El Garaje (Lima, 2022), 25 years of the ‘Passport for an Artist’ Award (Lima 2022), short-listed artists XII BCRP National Painting Contest 2022 (Lima); Casa de América (Madrid, 2021); 80m2 Livia Benavides Gallery (Lima, Peru 2019 and 2017); Salón (Madrid, 2017); Medellín Modern Art Museum (Medellín, 2016); Sala Luis Miró Quesada Garland (Lima, 2015). He was the winner of the ‘2012 Passport for an Artist’, organised by the French embassy in Peru and took part in residencies such as ‘Cité des Arts 2013’ in Paris, “Sommerakademie 2014 um Zentrum Paul Klee” in Berne, and Triangle France 2018 in Marseille.