🎨 Studio Visit: Roberto Rivadeneira
How the Ecuadorian artist merges technology with painterly techniques, to figure out what these times are.
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I messaged a lot of artists to figure out who was going to be in Madrid for the art weeks and who wasn’t going to be, all to figure out a few studio visits and or interviews. This may sound fairly straightforward but we have to remember a few variables: artists aren’t always in attendance for art fairs that their galleries are present at and, like most of us, they have jobs and lives and aren’t around at any moment to open their doors to someone hoping to do a story on them. Paired with language barriers and the general “Who are you?” vibes of a cold email, the likelihood of a response can be slim.
But Roberto Rivadeneira was game, perhaps the only artist who was being exhibited at the Madrid art fairs who 1.) was going to be present and 2.) had a gallery in the city and 3.) was interested in meeting up. I believe I found his work via the Urvanity Instagram or from some deep dive research of artists in the area, a month or two ago while I was researching potential subjects and had a few leads as far as story placements (which eventually dried up, but whatever), and reached out with the expectation that he very well may not be in attendance as his profile and websites all make it clear that he’s based between Berlin and Madrid: 50/50 chance. It all worked out though and, after some juggling of scheduling and rearranging timing, we made it work in a pocket he had between functions, after helping setup at the fair with his gallery Ilgaz Yildiz. The furthest south of our Carabanchel visits, and I made our way to his studio by stomping block after block in the rain, with a quick stop into DOPA for a tea.
Roberto’s space is a traditional studio setup in that it’s split with multiple other artists, most of whom were gathered around a displaced but literal bar that had a row of Vichy Catalans, either a showing of sparkling water wealth or part of an artwork that we didn’t have the context for. Roberto popped out from the back to say hello, pointing out that we were technically already in his space as he had the studio closest to the door. He apologized, though, because most of the works were in progress since many were at Urvanity, ideally getting sold or being shown. Or, at least, that was the work of the weekend. Totally understandable, but also surprising given that he is between Berlin and Madrid. Does he have two studios? Which city does he spend most of his time?
Like almost everyone we spoke to, he is very recently arrived — or arriving — to Madrid: after over a decade in Berlin, where he moved after time in Australia via his home of Ecuador, he decided to change things up, to seek a new energy. But, damn, he noted: being an artist in a city isn’t particularly easy as its a battle of creative output and things-you-do-for-money (which, in his case, is part time visual design, UI, and general “tech” things — just like the rest of us). His juggle, outside of making work, is figuring out how to make it all sustainable. Open a gallery? Open an art space? Do a mix of it all? Million dollar questions that all artists have to deal with, when you have to transition from simply making and selling “a thing” to figuring out how to become a business.
These are all relatable issues and, if you didn’t know to look, you’d miss that this juggling of identities — or intersection of identities — is on the canvas and in the work. While most of the paintings were unfinished — just the start of oil sketches, backgrounds to larger ideas that was best represented by the small red mark on a light green, in-the-make canvas — one was complete: Infinite Test 002, which was shown last year as a part of a showing of his work at Paris’ Galerie Bessaud. The work is abstract but “abstract” in the way that squinting your eyes to make things fuzzy is “abstract”: there is clearly something represented. Glassy corners, a crown of thorns, a collection of clear stones, light and shadows shone through it all: the image is depicting something. But what? It was a 3D object he created with the help of an AI model he trained with images of nature, refining and refining the process, iterating and ideating to generate a specific vocabulary he can apply to different objects and imagery. This specific work — and the works from this series — were created by a combination of printing a 3D image on canvas before riffing and embellishing the image with oils. The effect is that of the analogue and the digital, the back and forth that we all feel of being online and off, having to be URL and IRL: even paintings now are burdened with “that.”
Given Roberto’s UI work and his relationship to tech, these works are about negotiating reality, to explore how malleable our world is, that we are caught between two times, two states of thinking, two ways of operating: as people and as machines, which leaves us in a stupid in-between state where everyone but billionaires lose. For him, his art practice is about the back and forth of the digital and the painted, the mouse and the hand, applying his art practice as if a video game where his mission is to act as society’s tech support. To exist now is a negotiation of doing and not doing, to always be optimizing, to always be making something because you’re not a businessman but a business, man. Roberto’s approach is incredibly contemporary, made via contemporary tools, that all inspire viewers to wonder what it is they’re looking at. What is this? Where am I? When am I?: constant questions we, of a certain age, find ourselves asking ourselves having lived through multiple epochs within the small or big time we’ve been on this planet.
Undoubtedly Roberto plans to continue down this path because, as we all know, this is what it means to be a person in the world right now. It’s to be seen how Madrid will play into, develop, and challenge these ideas as he embarks on a new geographic context. We’ll find out as soon as this summer as he noted he was going to haul his life from Germany to Madrid himself, trucking his home and studio all the way down continental Europe. Time keeps going, doesn’t it?
Explore more of Roberto’s work on his website and Instagram.
Wow, so nice to see this name pop up in my inbox! I studied design with Roberto in Aus and he was always a joy to be around, fizzing with creative energy (when he came to class! I think he preferred to be out working on graffiti paintings than at a desk). He was always working on something. So wonderful to hear his story since then. Thanks for sharing.