«Quid pro quo»
The video begins with a black and white image that we soon realize to be the footage of a filmed photo. It is easily recognizable as a family photo, with all the implicit meaning, establishing a direct relationship with the idea of memory preservation. My hand then enters the image holding an x-act knife, starting to scratch the photo. Erasing the image by scratching it I increase the intensity and the importance of the gesture. There is a raw side to the presentation of this work that tries to show an intimate and direct work environment, free from the use of aesthetic artifice, staging or rehearsal. And yet, what we see happening there is not just the erasing/scraping of an image, but its transformation into something else. By drawing on a surface that already holds information, I am creating an image on top of another image. When I turn one thing into another, when I transform one thing by using another thing, when I exchange one thing for the other I am getting closer to the concept of quid pro quo (to take one thing for another) And at that moment the video is also addressing the creative process of the drawing itself, by including all the hesitations, the errors and the pauses taken for thinking. And in this process, of swapping with the background, the drawing is changing.
