Artist Statement
SILVIA VALENTINO
Born 1970, Varna, Bulgaria
The word DRIVE in English, unlike in my native Bulgarian, could be used as both a verb and a noun which enriches the possibilities for interpretation of my project's title as having at least three important meanings:- drive (n.) - the road one uses to commute
- drive (v.) - the action of operating a vehicle
- drive (n.) - the determination or ambition of a person to achieve something
In the DRIVE series, I use industrial and acrylic paint, graphite powder, pigments, glass beads medium, and rust on rolls of Stonehenge paper to recreate my daily encounters with the road. Virtually unlimited, the lengths of paper allow me to paint linearly, creating extensive, continuous panoramic pieces. Through a fast-paced and spontaneous process, I capture the aesthetics of the daily drive, which inspires me with both its forceful isolation from the rest of my fellow homo sapiens and its peculiar beauty.
Road signs, multi-colored reflective markings, oil stains, cross-walk "zebras", torn tires, melted asphalt, and spilled paint become landscapes that recount the permanence and transience of life. Besides the readily visible and sometimes accidental human activity however, my work shows a condensation of various places (visited and imagined) at the same time, voids of contemplation and pondering, states of disturbance and elation, and spliced space/time continuums. It also addresses the somewhat debilitating imposition of a very utilitarian invention—the road—on the human psyche and notes the prevalence of human depositing mechanisms, which are helpful to humans but not always harmless to nature.The highway as its own space contains the residue of human intentions, directives, prohibitions, errors, arrogance, attempts to communicate by means of license plate messages and bumper stickers, road rage, spit gum, cigarette butts, and many other forms of human activity. My paintings endeavor to show its unique language, to seize glimpses of the quotidian, and to record depositories of human existence.I drive my car. The signs and evidence left by others drive my art.