Traces of Discovery
As a self-proclaimed anthropologist with a paintbrush, Agustin Torri treats canvases as surfaces ripe for investigation. Through careful and quiet studies of the world around him, Torri excavates moments of solitude in his native Argentina to uncover something deeper in everything from dreaming cats to abandoned rivers. Beneath the surface of Torri’s canvases, awash with gentle hues and sparkling sunlight, lie traces of an identity waiting to be discovered. As a soon-to-be graduate of the National Cordoba University, Torri is surely on the brink of the discovery of a lifetime, but like any good anthropologist, he knows the answer lies in trusting the process and looking closely.
Part One: Who is Agustin Torri?
Question #1: Who are you?
“I was born in Argentina in 1994. My grandfather was a plein air artist who with I would make my first approach through painting. Since then I have never stopped painting or drawing. At age 19, I abandoned an economics career at university to study art and I soon got some workshops and studied at some ateliers in classical methods. Today, I’m studying in the last year of my art career and of course, working on artworks and learning all the time.”
Question #2: Who are you as an artist?
“Today I am (an artist) and tomorrow I may not be, and I think that’s an answer, it’s not defined, not closed, but still open to new horizons. Today I think I might be like an anthropologist, searching and recording with paint what life shows me on my way.”
I think I might be like an anthropologist, searching and recording with paint and drawing what life shows me on my way.”
Question #3: What motivates you to create?
“My subconscious talks though me from my intuition, so my paintings are the vehicle of my emotions that I cross on the huge pass of existence. Sometimes I have no words to describe what I feel and I feel too it is not necessary to rationalize everything so I let form and color describe that kind of emotion, what I feel and see though love, passion, illness, sadness, family, friendship. Its like an anthropologist, what life shows me on my way, I take decisions and make mistakes and learn from it, after all, that’s life, right?”
Part Two: Studying and Exploring
What is your artistic process?
My work unfolds mainly through shape and color. I use classical art method concepts and mixing techniques to emphasize what I feel on my painting or what I want to paint. I work from personal references, sketches, plein air and mixing painting genres (portrait, landscape, interior, exterior, etc) Doing this I get some new ideas to mix with another study or sketch. Sometimes the results are quite interesting, others not that much but its no less important in the process.
Mixed media on paper
14 x 24 cm
2019
In this work I tried to emphasize my friend’s cat, tetis, I felt so deeply admired watching how it was sleeping in that moment, the light weight about the dream, rest. So I wanted to describe just a bit about the context but not so much to compete with the portrait. I used some color pencils and acrylic mixing them to create harmony and using the background color with subtle varying different tones.
Mixed media on canvas
50 x 50 cm
2020
In this portrait I wanted to do something different about the female genre. She is a close friend so I wanted to represent the weight of her gaze, how it may be what she feels it is to be a woman today and in the arts genre with the representation of women in painting as a model. I decided to mix the background color to my favor to create the shape of the landscape and the body.
Mixed media on canvas
70 x 50 cm
2020
This work is perhaps, until now, the most emotional that I have painted, since this represents two portraits of those who have been part of my pillars as an artist since my childhood.
My grandfather presents a journey through the reinterpretation of his work in the Tulum town and my beginnings with painting. And to my grandmother, a pillar of what it means for my affection and unconditional love. I make her present, with her history and essence, the expression of my emotions with painting.
Mixed media on canvas
100 x 80 cm
2020
This work may try to represent a little of what my unconscious can speak for me, outside of the rational. An attempt to harmoniously order the chaos that abounds in the depths of my thoughts put into painting, mixing perspectives and other visual elements to create something different and complex. In this way, the complexity of existence opens the interpretations in the search for a reason or an answer.
Acrylic on sketchbook
2019
This is a recent sketch at the end of last year that will serve me for future works to work and compose. Every practical exercise opens possibilities, it is just a matter of finding a way to compose it.
Where/ How can Vacant Museum viewers see more of your work and where can they purchase it?
All my works you can find on instagram and some of them are for sale.
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