Miguel Scheroff

Alarmed by the constant stream of terrifying news coming from the media and the disturbing tension in which contemporary society seems to sway, my work aims to find through painting and installation a way to reflect on the great universal conflicts and their devastating consequences.

We belong to a convulsed generation immersed in emotional instability, we inhabit a fickle territory.

We inhabit a fickle territory where fascinating beauty is continually punctuated by alarming social dramas. I unashamedly admit that my work emerges to a large extent from vital anguish, loneliness, disenchantment or what we know as "millennial sadness". Always in search of an apparently impossible reasoning towards so much violence, apathy and false promises. In my first paintings I worked with heartbreaking images of stark faces showing human sadism, relieved by a luminous look that invited hope; the human being is capable of materialising both the most benevolent and the most terrible acts.

In my latest pictorial series I use the work of the great masters of classical painting, appropriating scenes that I try to connect with situations of the contemporary world, using icons of the millennial culture, the cartoon or kawaii aesthetic, and acid colours. With this parallelism I try to make visible how the fights between equals are repeated throughout history, and only lead to destruction and collective pain; the current confrontations only show that man is unable to overcome his complexes and to value the capacity to love. With my work I intend to touch the most intense feelings of the viewer, to provoke a reflexive reaction, to provoke a reflexive reaction and provoke a reflexive reaction through extreme exaltation.

I define my paintings as contemporary Vanitas; a way of bringing the target closer to becoming aware of what their role in society may be and what are the true values that prevail in the face of their inevitable disappearance in an increasingly tense and unstable world.