Pabli Stein

My work explores the conflict between what is exposed and what is hidden. Both my paintings and my collages are nurtured by photographs related to fashion and advertising aesthetics. They present the female figure in full, as a detail, or just as a trace. Sometimes they are focused on texture, and sometimes on material, brightness halo, contrast. If something becomes too obvious, I discard it. Starting with these cuts and indications, I compose an image, then I gradually pour gestures on it: tearing, veiling, scratching, filling, sweeping, spilling, or dripping. I superimpose color layers as if they were layers of meaning until the original figure becomes blurred and it starts revealing the reference’s wear and tear. The image gets submerged in a query and the painting almost turns into another character; the veil becomes more essential than the veiled object. In these times where nothing is hidden, I aim to recover part of eroticism’s lost brightness: the power of what is hidden.