Blanca Padros-Quintana

Artist Statement:

​My art practice consists in the conversation that happens between painting photography as a travelling artist. The title of my works is called “The Grand Tour, a contemporary take.”. I think of myself as a contemporary impressionist. I base my practice in the act of taking images of places, people and moments, then translating those into paint. The term “Artourist” first utilised by Leonor Antunes, refers to the traveller who creates art while on their journey. I like the idea that photography can be both a means to an end, so it is the starting point of many works, although it can also a f inished product itself. Within the context of my art practice, it largely depends on the subject matter and what I am trying to portray. If the image expresses the message I want to send, it stays as a photograph. If I feel like the message is not as strong, I turn that photograph into a painting. At times, the snapshots I take are purely used as reference pictures.

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I am largely interested in the social study of tourism and memory. Specifically, how people experience spaces and landscapes and why people feel the need to take photographs of every location. My favourite subject to take photos of are buildings in towns or cities, especially if I can find a street or an archway to frame the shot. I like to think of my photographs not only as research, but as memory stores, whereas I consider my paintings an imagined setting or the impressions of the memory of that place. I enjoy embellishing my paintings with saturated colours and textures made with paint – I think of this process as what happens when you try to think of a memory too many times, where it starts to shift, and details become blurred with recollection.

 

Due to my interest in the social aspect of tourism driving my passion to make art about it, the angles I shoot from are usually at eye level, from the perspective of the tourist. As I walk along, I take photos without curating the image. I tend to focus on the sun reflections on buildings, on sidewalk interactions, winding streets, or the colours changing in contrast between sunlight and shadow or night and artificial light. When I travel, I take photographs of everything, from the meals I eat to the streets I walk through. And although I always take photographs of the main landmarks and important buildings, they become secondary to the places that catch my interest. In my current collection of postcards works, I use a bright orange acrylic paint base for every painting and the canvas board size stays the same for every piece in the series. By keeping to those parameters, my body of work is not only cohesive by size or subject matter, but also by colour. The orange also provides a brightness and warmth throughout the pieces that most people struggle to point out until they realise. This allows me to have an ongoing, continuing series of work easily.