MANUEL TER?N (Chile, 1974).
"The great wave of Kanagawa by Picasso", 2022- 2023.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner. Signed, dated and titled on the back.
Measurements: 130 x 162 cm.
Imbued by the aesthetics of pop neorealism in this work the author presents us with Picasso portrayed in black and white with his back to the viewer, creating one of his famous bathers who are being invaded by "The great wave" of Kanagawa. Terán thus creates an image of great visual impact where he unites two aesthetic icons of art history, West and East come together in this image that reveals the value of art as creation. In the catalog of the exhibition "Tribute to the Geniuses", it is stated that "Terán tries to postulate the return of painting as a symbolic strategy. His tributes, which take the form of pastiches, but are not. The artists he chooses to pay tribute to are admired by him (Francis Bacon, Banksy, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Lucio Fontana, Francisco de Goya, Lucian Freud, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Robert Indiana, Jaspers Johns, Yves Klein, Kusama-Velázquez, Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Joaquín Sorolla and Andy Warhol). The list could not be more heterogeneous. It does not follow any order. He pays homage to those artists he admires, even when his own work bears no relation to theirs. The heterogeneity of his preferences is evident and proves E. Gombrich right, for whom there is no art but artists. This extreme nominalism leads him to skip aesthetic categories, as well as chronologies".
A Chilean artist living in Spain, with a degree in Fine Arts, Manuel Terán has developed his creative work in the field of plastic arts and new technologies applied to art. Since he became known in 1995 at the Salón de Otoño del Círculo de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile, he has held solo exhibitions and participated in group shows and fairs in Latin America and Europe. He has received awards such as the Real Academia de San Carlos de Valencia (2004).