Angela Santana Baigneuse, 2023, edition of 5

“My work investigates the implications connected to the historical representation of the female body and its lasting influence until today. Centuries of male dominated industries in painting and photography have shaped the depiction of women, often being presented passive, pleasing, idealized and objectified. By turning my attention to the internet, my approach observes this behavior in society today. The mass of illicit images online mirrors its vast demand in society and fast pace of its consumption. I’m questioning the ethics of this phenomenon by applying these found images in my work. Creating an empowering reinterpretation: The new subject having been transformed and shifted from objectification, the object becomes the subject. My technique is a unique synergy of digital and classical painting. Each painting is created first digitally in hundreds of layers. I like to revisit my paintings and keep layering and shifting the composition in a way that I couldn’t otherwise. At the core of this technique is my search to represent the human body in a new way, free from bias or objectification. Humans and technology have become hybrids. In my work, I’m not interested in computers taking over and doing the work for me. I am interested in the dialogue and embrace it as a tool of synergetic force. My technique allows me to melt together the manual and digital, the human and the machine, the ancient and the new. Even the conscious and subconscious. This system and process results in a body of work and reconfigurations with an unpredictable result, which was my quest. I emphasize the strength and permanence of my work by painting the finished composition in oils onto large scale canvases. Through the medium of oil paint, I create an antagony to the fleeting digital thumbnail. Furthermore, I am working on etchings and aquatints, combining classical techniques with the new technologies.” – Angela Santana.