Juan Barletta’s works focus on consumerism and desire, his photo-realist paintings evoke an ambiguous duality of desire and beauty. Juan’s images of often controversial iconic figures within popular culture question the ideals of synthetic beauty and its imagined reality. He alludes to the falsity of images represented within the media and its distorted boundaries of what is real and artificial.
Melting faces like molten plastic bleed away leaving the audience to wonder what lays beneath the surface. Cartoon colours are cleverly used to create the make-believe world of the celebrity; a world that aspires to and promotes a lifestyle dedicated to beauty, fame and wealth, but which will by contrast seek the grotesque degradation of the spectacle in order to secure its 5 minutes of fame.
We are presented with dripping homages to ‘bit-pop’ celebrities, glorified and iconoclastic, dripping like sweets left in the sun. Juan’s paintings invade and stimulate our perception of reality through masterfully created synthetic portraits as sickly sweet as ‘candy’.
Barletta (b1974) was born and lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina; he studied fine art at Neuquén School of Arts. He has exhibited nationally and internationally and participated in solo and group shows, notably with The Opera Gallery. He also regularly participates in art fairs.
Self-taught or art school?
Both. I was self-taught from the time I can remember until I was 25 years old, at which point I began to attend different art workshops to perfect my technique and strengthen my style.
If you could own one work of art what would it be?
I’m not sure, probably a Jeff Koons painting.
How would you describe your style?
My style interchanges between the ambiguity of the real and the artificial, I try to question an imagined reality, connecting directly with the viewer. I interpret the human being, as a cluster of fragile and sensitive matter, whose strange substance, on occasions, accompanies and emphasizes his emotions.
Through the palette, I try to create an atmosphere with a sweet aroma and offer a complex graphic cosmos with my own language and internal logic. I play with our perception and our visual memory whilst challenging it. It is a kind of plastic puzzle in which the representation requires decoding by the viewer, creating an ambiguity between the artificial and the biological universe. I assume that the body, and therefore the human being as a whole, responds to a state of contingency and arbitrariness.
Can you tell us about your artistic process?
The process varies a lot depending on what I do. Sometimes I portray celebrities and other portraits of my imagination.
When I portray celebrities, I look for references that serve me. This process can take several hours or days. My portraits try to represent the purest and most neutral essence of the figure, without gestures, without grimaces, devoid of expressions that alter its most intimate and neutral “I”. Almost like a passport photo. Once I have that image I work on it in 3D to give it a texture that suits my style and then I paint it (or not).
When it comes to portraits proposed by my imagination, the process is different, less rational and more instinctive, I try to put a feeling, emotion or sensation on paper. I work on it in different ways, angles and approaches, until I achieve what best suits what I want to tell and convey. Then the process is similar to the previous one, I work it in 3D to create a texture and from there, I take it to the fabric (or not).
Is narrative important within your work?
Yes, very!
Who are your favourite artist and why?
I don’t have a favourite one, but I could mention Manu Muñoz, for his sensitivity, the poetic and subtle way he transitions between the figurative and the abstract.
Andy Warhol, because he came to tell us that any object or public figure can be seen as art.
Jeff Koons, his imagination knows no bounds. He confirmed the famous phrase of Picasso “everything you can imagine is real”
What or who inspires your art?
Music in general, some icons, love, pain, women.
Where’s your studio and what’s it like?
My studio is my brain, I create my works much earlier in my head than in any physical space. I work in a small room in my house.
Do you have any studio rituals?
Nope, not any 🙂
What are you working on currently?
I am currently working on a series of portraits of women, in oil, in large format.
Where can people buy your work?
