Jorge R Pombo

A self-taught artist, Jorge Pombo describes his artmaking as a struggle of opposites: figuration versus abstraction, image against words, narrative versus non-narrative. His methodology is similarly paradoxical, and his techniques mirror this perpetual exploration of opposing forces. Appropriating images from master artists like Tintoretto, Michelangelo, Velázquez, and Sargent, Pombo paints works bound to specific points of departure, specific times and places, but then frees them from historicity via more modern means. Once the chosen image is rendered on canvas, the artist pours solvent over the oils. This method, reminiscent of mid-twentieth century action paintings, produces a fluid, abstracted version of the original masterpiece - a blurred variation emphasizing color and movement rather than figure and form.  

Pombo says of his process: "I erase images, affirming as well as eliminating them. By blurring them capriciously with the solvent. I cause chance to intervene in the finishing decisions of the painting, emphasizing the liquid aspect of the discipline, trying to respect the dynamics of the nature of the paint puddles."