Other Projects: Collaborations, Commissions, Competitoins, Installations
Ashburton Art Gallery – Foyer Wall Commission
AAG; April – December, 2021
Cinéma of the Rorschach, 2021 Acrylic on hessian with aluminium support bars in nine segments, 6095x4495x50mm
For Soltero, the theatre is a container for images and collective memory, connecting the physical and theoretical aspects of his work. Soltero’s images begin with the projection of an original photograph created by light reflected from an object. During projection, a passage of light carries the image until striking a surface, creating the second and third copy of the image. What is seen by the viewer is distanced from the original object by four separations. Soltero’s work reflects these layers, physically and contextually alluding to the ever-growing distance between moment and memory.
Cinema of the Rorschach is built upon a found-image of the interior of Irving Theatre in San Francisco, adding to the level of separation between viewed and viewer. Although the theatre closed down before he could experience it, the image provides a reference to the neighbourhood theatres in which Soltero spent the evenings and weekends of his youth.
Soltero’s intricate and intense process begins with digitally separating data from the original image into layers representing levels of light. These layers are then made into large, hyper-detailed stencils and this Warhol-like process of stencilling highlights each layer through the overlapping and slight bleeding of paint. Stencilling also creates a positive and negative map of each layer, which Soltero repurposes across new pieces. The way the stencil is layered and laid also creates tension between the visible and the hidden.
Soltero embraces this subconscious way of viewing to explore themes of personal history and memory. He not only incorporates his own past but allows each viewer the opportunity to apply their personal experience and memory to the work.
text adapted from Reah Somerville’s article, Artbeat, May 2021