Nathan Caballero (HL)

Curatorial Rationale

My life thus far has been a series of emotional challenges. Similar to a rollercoaster, my experiences not only in the diploma program but also my experiences to date have had sudden spikes of euphoria and uncalculated hardships. Therefore, the purpose of my pieces is to highlight my own flaws and the plethora of immoral acts I’ve witnessed in society. Furthermore, my pieces are inspired by the literary genres of Gothic literature and Dark-Romanticism-- which both perceive and focus on the dark, psychological and grotesque aspects of humanity. It’s important for me to note that my choice of highlighting certain flaws of humanity isn’t intended or biased through a misanthropic perspective-- but rather aims to rationalize and promote a theme of ‘human complexity’. Ultimately, by exemplifying a message regarding how humans are imperfect, it strengthens an emotional response from the viewer as I get to share a part of my history with my audience. Hence, through my attempt of expressionism, I aspire for the viewers to question and interpret the several underlying metaphors and symbols in my pieces.

Evidently, my art pieces are almost chaotic. This is because as an artist, I almost naturally gravitate towards painting expressively. I am aware that it is important to understand and appreciate details and accuracy, however, I find that what most young-artists like myself doing is, simply painting only what can be seen rather than creating my own atmosphere. Moreover, most of my pieces are composed of gouache or oil paints as I love the lucidness and endless potential of mixing and creating my own colours. However, I’ve also challenged myself by experimenting with sculpture making, photography and sequential art. Additionally, most of my pieces incorporate several colours, however, all my pieces have incorporated either the somber shade of blue or the vibrancy of red. This was intended as a symbol for contrast and juxtaposition further feeding into my theme of human complexity. Blue is a hue that is commonly associated with sadness and despair, whereas the colour red is heavily associated with passion and life. To this end, my use and priority over these two shades is aiming to demonstrate that humans are not two-dimensional beings as our emotions are a series of contrasting colours that somehow co-exist with each other.

Furthermore, because all my pieces tackle different types of emotions and behaviors they manage to incorporate my passion for understanding psychological processes. My pieces such as Melodrama, Abrasions, Ignorance, and Bombarded discusses the internal cognitive influences that may affect the livelihood of an individual. The struggles of suffering from psychological disorders such as ADHD and its emotional consequences are demonstrated in my piece Bombarded. Abrasions aims to discuss why accepting our own literal and metaphorical scars is difficult. Ignorance, highlights why we choose to ignore information and are fueled by unsubstantiated information and the concept of why we ruminate our depressive thoughts is visualized through my piece Melodrama. Whereas my other pieces, Puff Puff Pass, Garcon, Carcass, Cannibal, Life-line, Her Name is Nature and Who’s Going to Give Flowers?, exemplifies how society and our environment may shape our behaviours and influence our emotions. Puff Puff Pass discusses how easily behaviours can be replicated and passed on through conformity, Garcon, Carcass and Her Name is Nature demonstrates how society shapes certain standards such as beauty and the influence of gender-roles, and Life-Line, Cannibal and Overused exemplifies societies innate desire to overconsume.

Interestingly so, my pieces will be arranged based on the shade of their background. Upon visiting my exhibition the viewers will automatically see a gradient-like effect and the contrast between my ‘light’ pieces and my ‘dark’ pieces. This is intended to further create a contrasting atmosphere and is designed to signify that humans once again are complex and our emotions and behaviors are not static, but rather our emotions and livelihoods are in constant motion and may shift either gradually or suddenly. Thus my ultimate goal is to not only envoke an emotional response from the reader but also challenge their thought processing by allowing them to draw their own conclusions and personal connections with my pieces.