Francisco Valdés : Manual: Manual

The paintings in this exhibition are based on the pages of a photography instruction manual, which lays out the technical rights and wrongs of the picture making process. When translated to the medium of painting, the pages become introspective, relaying their own process of coming into being as a concrete image. Valdés’s paintings are overlayed by networks of lines, recalling printing techniques such as halftone or Roy Lichtenstein’s Ben Day dots. They lend an intangible quality to the underlying images, which come into focus or seemingly evaporate as the viewer approaches. Valdés seeks to evoke the optic variations caused by atmospheric conditions, artificial lights and camera flashes. The pictures, distanced and dissipated by his painterly interventions, ultimately challenge the notion of a singular and true image, whether experienced directly or frozen on film.