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Anderson Asteclines' practice is rooted in instinctive, gestural mark-making. His paintings draw on memory, desire, and the traces of past encounters, reflecting on intimacy and identity through two recurring subjects: his experiences of gay cruising in London's parks and his complex childhood with his mother and younger brother in Brasília. Populated by spectres of the past, Asteclines' works explore the tensions between anonymity, vulnerability, and longing through distorted faces, fragmented figures, and symbols of mourning. These vivid paintings often evoke the absurd, violent, and visceral dimensions of cruising, where pleasure and danger coexist.
Working in oil on canvas, Asteclines employs a process of layering, smudging, erasing, and reworking that echoes the act of remembering. Images gradually emerge like dreams or visions, shaped through accumulation and revision. This continual negotiation between revealing and concealing reflects the desire to both expose and protect personal experience, allowing memory to remain fluid, elusive, and emotionally charged. His paintings often seem as if they are both coming into being and fading away at the same time.
Anderson Asteclines (b. 1994, Brazil) holds an MFA with distinction from the Glasgow School of Art and is currently an artist in residence at the Tracey Emin Artist Residency in Margate, UK.
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